y.  /  c 


Stom  f^e  feifirarg  of 

gprofeBBor  n^^tfPiam  J^enrg  (Bteen 

Q$eciueaf^e^  6g  ^tm  fo 
t^e  fcifirarg  of 

(f)tinceton  C^eofo^icaf  ^eminarg 

BS  650  .L48  1856 

Lewis,  Tayler,  1802-1877 

The  Bible  and  science 


n 


THE 


BIBLE  AND  SCIENCE: 


OE, 


THE  WORLD-PROBLEM. 


y 


By  TAYLER  lewis, 

PROFESSOR   OF   GREEK,  UNION  COLLEGE. 


Cuncta  fecit  bona  in  tempore  suo,  et  MUNDUM  tradidit  disputationi  eo- 
rum,  ut  non  inveniat  homo  quod  operatus  est  DeuP,  ab  initio  usque  ad  fi- 
nem. — EccUsiastcs  iii,  11. 

And  there  was  a  voice  from  the  tirmnment  that  was  over  the  heads  of  the 
living  creatures. — Ezekicl  i,  25. 


SCHENECTADY  : 
G.  Y.  VAN  DEBOaERT. 

1856. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1856, 

BY    GILES    T.    VAN    DEBOGERT, 

in  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  for  the  Northern 
District  of  New- York. 


KIGG-s,    PRI.VTEU,    SCHENECTADY. 


PREFACE. 


ISoME  apology  is  due  for  -what  may  seem  the  miscellane- 
ous character  of  the  present  volume,  and  especially  the 
mingling  of  the  controversial.  Such  apology  is  found  in 
its  history.  There  had  grown  upon  the  author's  hands, 
Scriptural  notes  and  other  matter  designed  for  an  appen- 
dix to  the  third  edition  of  the  work  entitled  The  Six 
Days  of  Creation.  In  the  meantime,  however,  that  work 
had  been  the  subject  of  a  number  of  extended  reviews ; 
no  less  than  three  by  the  editor  of  the  Theological  and 
Literary  Journal,  whilst  the  conductors  of  the  Andover 
Bibliotheca  Sacra  have  honored  it  by  a  whole  year's 
notice,  with  a  promise  of  continuance.  The  author's 
friends  thought  that  he  ought  to  make  some  reply. 
The  Andover  periodical,  however,  was  closed  to  his  de- 
fence, although  his  writings  had  been  charged  in  it  with 
"  having  a  decidedly  infidel  tendency."  A  pamphlet, 
therefore,  was  thought  of.  This  grew  in  size,  and  as  it 
was  found  that  the  other  matter  would  much  exceed  the 


IV  PREFACE. 

original  bounds  assigned  to  it,  it  was  thought  best  to 
combine  both  objects  in  the  volume  now  presented  to  the 
pubUc.  Professor  Barrows'  review  in  the  Bibliotheca 
came  out  too  late  for  notice.  Some  of  his  positions  are 
already  met,  and  we  think  successfully,  in  the  Ninth 
chapter  of  the  present  volume.  If  the  continuance  he 
promises  demands  an  answer,  permission  for  that  pur- 
pose may  be  asked  in  the  columns  of  some  of  our  reli- 
gious newspapers,  or  of  the  editors  of  such  monthly  or 
quarterly  periodical  as  may  grant  the  privilege  that  has 
been  denied  where  it  was  due. 

The  book  is  a  protest  against  what  the  author  regards 
as  a  most  one-sided  error  of  the  times, —  the  false  posi- 
tion of  Physical  Science,  and  its  naturalizing  effect  upon 
the  theology  and  religion  of  the  day.  In  the  zealous 
exposition  of  such  an  error,  it  would  be  no  wonder  if 
the  work  was  found  to  be  somewhat  one-sided  itself. 
The  intelligent  reader,  however,  will  apply  the  corrective 
which  the  author  could  not  well  employ  without  swelling 
the  size  of  the  book,  or  unduly  weakening  the  force  of  his 
argument  by  too  much  of  an  apologetic  or  explanatory 
tone.  The  volume  is  presented  to  the  public  with  the 
conviction,  that  whatever  may  be  thought  of  the  mode  of 
argument,  it  will  be  admitted  to  contain  some  timely  and 
important  truth. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I.  P„^„, 

INTRODUCTORY   VIEW. 

Question  of  the  Creative  Days — Its  Pressing  Importance 
— Science  has  its  Bigotry  as  well  as  Theology — Two 
Classes  of  Scientific  Men — The  Keplers  and  the  Galileos 
— Present  Faith  in  the  Bible,  how  different  from  the  Old 
— Its  true  Internal  Evidence  as  set  forth  by  the  Old 
Divines — The  Bible  Everything  or  Nothing  — Undue 
Deference  to  Science — The  real  Naturalism — False  and 
limited  use  of  the  word  Science — Natural  History — Ex- 
travagant Boasting — Natural  Science,  Causes  of  its 
Popularity — Easiness  of  Acquisition — General  Smat- 
tering— Men  love  to  be  talked  to  Scientifically — Quack- 
ish  Reasoning  about  Law  and  Nature — Spiritualism — 
Appeal  to  Utilities — The  Bible  Praised,  but  not  Stu- 
died—  Style  of  Preaching — The  Bible  not  in  the  Heart 
of  the  Age — Literature  and  Politics — The  Bible  to  be 
Interpreted,  not  Reconciled — The  true  Field  of  Reve- 
lation, All  that  it  professes  to  teach. 1-3- 

CHAPTER  II. 

Scriptural  Interpretation  in  Connection  with  Science — 
Nine  General  Principles — Application  to  the  Creative 
Reeord-^The  Difficulty  of  a  Solar  Day  without  a  Sua 
as  obvious  to  Moses  as  to  Mr.  Lord — If  there  is  any 
such  Difficulty  it  is  Patent  on  the  Face  of  the  Record 
— It  has  not  come  from  Science,  but  from  False  Inter- 
pretation— Interpretation,  therefore,  and  not  Science, 
must  Remove  it — Creation  an  Order  of  Appearances 
— Each  Appearance  a  Morning — Succession,  not  Dura- 
tion, the  Bad  ical  Idea,  t • . ,     62. 


VI  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  III.  -P"^^' 

TUB    ■WORD    DAY,    AND    TUE    JIYSTIC    NUMBERS    OF    PROPHECY. 

A^aiious  Senses  of  tlae  Word  Day — Summary  of  Princi- 
ples concerned  in  its  Interpretation — Eight  Heads  of 
Argument — The  Prophetical  Day — Analogous  to  the 
Creative  Day — Numbers  as  used  in  Prophecy — Three 
kinds — Definite  Numbers — Round  Numbers — Perfect 
Numbers — The  Word  Day  as  applied  to  the  Closing 
Dispensation  of  the  World — Analogy  with  the  Crea- 
tive Account — Kedhem,  or  the  Ante-time  State 76 

CHAPTER  IV. 

Kedhem,  or  the  Ante-time  State — Psalm  Iv,  19,  "  He 
that  Inhabiteth  Kedhem" — Sadducean  Interpreters — 
Psalm  Ixviii,  "  The  Heaven  of  Heavens  of  Old" — 
Spiritual  in  Distinction  from  a  Cabalistical  Sense — 
Space  Sense — Messianic  Character  of  the  Psalm — 
Where  is  Kedhem"? — The  Rationalist — The  Twenty- 
four  Hour  Interpreter — The  Timeless  Slate — The 
Question  of  the  Eternity  of  Matter — The  Absurdity 
involved  in  the  very  Inquiry 120 

CHAPTER  V. 

THE  FOUR  GREAT  IDEAS  OF  THE  MOSAIC  ACCOUNT. 

The  Word— The  Work— The  Rest— The  Day— These 
must  be  in  Harmony  with  Each  Other — The  Old  Ara- 
bian View — The  Patriarchal  View — Theory  of  Guyot 
—Of  Mr.  Lord— Of  Pye  Smith— The  True  Scrijitural 
View  is  the  one  that  has  least  Need  of  Science 142 

CHAPTER  VI. 

SCIENCE    AND    THE    BIBLE. 

Spirit  of  the  Scientific  Patronage — Professor  Dana's  Apo- 
thegm— The  Bible  "  the  Boat,  Science  the  Current" — 
The  Natural  in  Creation — Claim  of  Prior  Discovery — 
Claim  of  Science  to  have  Proved  the  Supernatural — 
Science  can  not  find  the  Supernatural — Must  ever  as- 
sume a  Law  for  a  Fact — Can  not  even  find  a  God — 
An  Atheist  as  good  a  Scientific  Man  as  a  Tbeist — Se- 
cret Wheels  and  Cogs  in  Nature — The  Greater  Dura- 
tions— Science  can  not  disprove  Development — Can 
never  refute  the  "  Vestiges  of  Creation" — Bible  alone 
can  fclay  "  The  Vestiges." 151 


CONTENTS.  VII 

CHAPTER  VII.  P'^g'- 

WE   KNOW   NOTHING   OF    ORIGIN    EXCEPT   FBOM   A   DIVINE 
REVELATION. 

The  Vestiges  of  Creation — Who  Killed  the  Monster  ? — 
Individual  Generation  as  Mysterious  as  the  Generic — 
Revelation  itself  the  Highest  Supernatural — Why 
should  we  be  afraid  of  the  Natural  in  Creation  ? — Ani- 
malculte — Agassiz's  Doctrine  of  Man — The  Primus 
Homo — Science  occupied  with  What  is,  and  How  it  is — 
The  Cosmical  Movement — Science  does  not  tak-e  it  into 
Account — Hypothetical  Discussion  between  the  Vesti- 
gian  and  the  Anti-vestigian — Nature's  Gestation  long 
her  Births  sudden  and  complete — Doctrine  of  Types — 
No  Meaning  in  the  Language  as  used  by  some  Scien- 
tific Men — The  Atheism  of  "The  Vestiges,"  in  what 
it  truly  consists 181 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE    SIS   DAYS    AS    FOUND    BY    SCIENCE. 

The  Writer  in  the  Andover  Bibliotheca — His  Nebular 
Theory — The  Reviewer  finds  no  Difl&culties — A  hearty 
Faith  is  not  so  easily  satisfied — The  chief  interest  of 
the  Mosaic  Account — 1st.  Its  Supernatural  Character 
— 2d.  Its  Hexameral  Division — The  true  Greatness 
of  the  Mosaic  Account — Greatness  of  Moses  as  compar- 
ed with  Aristotle  or  Bacon — Professor  Dana's  Seven 
Points — Of  the  First  Three  Geoloo'v  knows  nothine: — 
Her  Protests  or  Acceptances  of  no  Value — Rests  in 
Nature — The  Scientific  Scheme  of  Creation — As  well 
Sis  Hundred  Days  as  Sis — The  Reviewer's  Boat 
driven  by  two  Forces — The  Word  Beginning — Sudden 
leap  from  the  Birth  of  the  Light  to  the  Growing  of  the 
Mosses — Immense  Distances  from  which  Light  travels 
— Want  of  Chronological  Harmony — Immense  Hiatus 
in  the  Second  Day — A  3Iodest  Note — Spectral  Light 
of  Geology — The  Rakia  or  Firmament — Was  it  the 
Breaking  up  of  the  Nebular  Rings  ? — Had  Moses  any 
fiuch  View,  either  as  Fact  or  Conception  ? 215 

CHAPTER  IX. 

SCIENTIFIC    SIX    DAYS    AT   WAR    WITH    EXEQESIS. 

The  Word  Bara — The  Beginning — The  Shemitic  Mind — 
Words  for  Creation— The  Hebrew — The  New  Testa- 


VIII  CONTENTS. 

ment  Terms — The  Philosophical  Greek— The  Arabic  '^"St- 
Words  for  Creation — Emotional  Aim  of  the  Bible — 
Did  Moses  think  of  an  Absolute  Principium? — Six 
Arguments :  1st.  From  the  First  Verse  generally — 
■2d.  The  Words  Heaven  and  Earth  ;  Do  they  denote 
Universality? — 3d.  The  Earth  the  Locus  of  the  First 
Energizing  mentioned  by  Moses — 4th.  The  Light  after 
ihe  Waters — 5th.  Heavens  Built  over  the  Earth — 
6th.  The  First  Verse,  if  severed  from  the  rest,  must 
be  Extra  Dies — Parallelism  of  the  Mosaic  Account 
with  the  First  of  John — Patristic  View  of  its  3d  and 
-4th  Verses 268 

CHAPTER  X. 

ANTIQUITY    OF    THE    EARTH. 

fjreology  claims  the  Sole  Credit  of  the  Idea — What  may 
be  fairly  Conceded  to  her — One  who  is  not  a  Geologist 
may  Reason  about  Geology — The  Geologist  himself 
may  be  unfitted  for  Cosmical  Questions — A  little  Sci- 
ence wakes  up  Thought  in  Thoughtful  Minds — The 
Idea,  once  aroused,  is  seen  everywhere — Antiquity  of 
the  Earth  as  seen  in  the  most  Common  Phenomena — 
Nature,  in  general,  Honest  and  Truthful — Geological 
Changes  referred  to  in  Job  xiv — The  Ancient  Philo- 
sophy— The  World-Problem — The  Schoolmen  and  the 
Galileos-- The  "Students  of  Nature" — The  Epicure- 
ans the  Ancient  Scientific  Boasters — Natural  Theo- 
logy  301 

CHAPTER  XI. 

WHAT    IS    NATURE? 

Can  there  be  a  True  Nature  ? — The  two  Great  Ques- 
tions— How  can  there  be  Evil  without  God? — How 
can  there  be  a  Nature  that  is  not  God  ? — Can  God 
make  a  Nature  to  go  by  itself? — Laws  of  Thinking 
higher  than  Laws  of  Nature — Deteriorations  in  Na- 
ture— Was  there  Death  before  Adam's  Fall  ? — Nature 
as  well  as  Spirit  left  to  itself — In  what  Sense  ? — Mo- 
tion by  Impulse — The  Axiom,  "  A  Body  once  set  in 
Motion  will  forever  continue  in  Motion" — The  Mystery 
of  the  Rolling  Ball — Force — Is  it  an  Entity  ? — Science 
finds  Formulas — Philosophy  Wonders — Faith  Adores 
— Ideas,  as  well  as  Laws,  in  Nature,  t 336 


CHAPTER  I. 


INTRODUCTORY   VIEW. 

Question  of  the  Creative  Days — lis  Pressing  ImpoHance — 
Science  has  its  Bigotry  as  well  as  Theology — Two  Classes 
of  Scientijic  Men —  The  Keplers  and  the  Galileos — Pre- 
sent Faith  in  the  Bible,  hoio  different  from  the  old — Its 
true  Internal  Evidence  as  set  forth  hy  the  Old  Divines — 
The  Bible  everything  or  nothing —  Undue  Deference  to 
Science — The  real  Naturalism — False  and  limited  use  of 
the  word  Science — Natural  History — Extravagant  Boast- 
ing— Natural  Science,  Causes  of  its  Popularity — Easiness 
of  Acquisition — General  Smattering — Men  love  to  be 
talked  to  Scientifically — Quackish  Reasoning  about  Law 
and  Nature — Spiritualism — Appeal  to  Utilities — The 
Bible  Praised  but  not  Studied — Style  of  Preaching — The 
Bible  not  in  the  heart  of  the  Age — Literature  and  Politics 
—  The  Bible  to  be  Interpreted,  not  Beconciled — Tlie  trite 
Field  of  Revelation,  all  that  it  professes  to  teach. 

The  following  work,  it  will  be  seen,  is  closely  related  to 
another  lately  published,  and  entitled  "  The  Six  Days  ot 
Creation."  It  is  very  natural  for  an  author  to  dwell  on 
the  importance  of  his  subject ;  but  in  this  case,  certainly 
no  earnestness  of  language  could  well  be  out  of  place. 
The  question  connected  with  the  Mosaic  account  of  the 
origin  of  the  Earth  and  Man,  has  difficulties  in  itself;  it 
has  also  been  surrounded  by  others  from  without  that 

2' 


14  INTRODUCTORY   VIEW. 

are  pressing  more  and  more  closely  for  a  solution.  A 
settlement  of  them  is  demanded,  and  this  demand  \ii\\  not 
admit  of  mucli  delay.  The  chasm  of  doubt  is  opening 
wider  and  Avider.  It  must  somehow  be  closed,  and  by 
materials,  too,  from  the  Scriptural  side.  The  bridge 
must  have  its  firmest  abutment  on  that  shore  of  the  yawn- 
ing abyss.  A  certain  class  of  scientific  men  in  scientific 
conventions,  and  a  certain  class  of  religionists  in  anni- 
versary speeches,  are  much  given  to  talking  of  "  harmo- 
nies," but  it  has  been  in  the  main  a  harmony  of  one  part, 
or  at  the  utmost  with  a  very  slender  accompaniment.  It 
has,  in  other  words,  been  made  out  almost  wholly  from 
the  side  of  science.  Now  this  may  satisfy  those  who 
make  it,  for  they  have  assumed  the  harmony  in  the  be- 
ginning, honestly  assumed  it  no  doubt,  whether  it  be  from 
the  strength  or  the  easy  pliancy  of  their  faith,  and,  there- 
fore, they  can  not  appreciate  the  troubles  of  those  who 
have  no  such  scientific  piety  on  the  one  hand,  or  profes- 
sional religionism  on  the  other,  to  give  confidence  to  so 
easy  an  assumption.  In  other  words,  this  reasoning  will 
never  satisfy  the  silent,  yet  ever  inquiring,  common  mind. 
It  ought  to  satisfy  no  mind ;  for  when  examined  closely, 
it  is  found  to  be  but  a  string  of  empty  truisms  which  men 
would  be  ashamed  to  employ  in  otlicr  departments  of  rea- 
soning. '  All  truth  is  consistent  with  all  other  truth,' — 
'  the  Bible  beuig  true  can  not  teach  what  is  false  ;'  '  twu 
revelations  from  God  (nature  being  assumed  to  be  one 
of  them  in  as  proper  a  sense  as  the  Scriptures)  can  not 
contradict  each  other,'  etc.,  etc.  Of  how  many  lectures 
— and,  we  may  also  say,  of  ho\\'  many  sermons — do  such 
verbal  platitudes  as  these  form  the  leading  staple  I  It  is 
time  that  this  should  cease,  and  that  thinking  men  should 


niPOIlTANCE   OF  THE   QUESTION.  15 

address  themselves  earnestly  to  the  difficvilties  of  the 
question,  ■tt-hether  they  be  intrinsic  and  real,  or  have 
been  forced  upon  it  by  outward  circumstances.  Such 
truisms  as  the  above  may  do  for  those  who  regard  the 
matter  as  all  settled  on  other  grounds ;  but,  we  say  again, 
they  will  never  satisfy  the  thoughtful  common  mind. 
Nothing  will  do  here  but  an  honest  interpretation  of 
Scripture, — bold  yet  careful,  impartial  but  not  indiffer- 
ent, free  yet  most  hearty  and  sincere.  The  great  ques- 
tion, the  momentous  question,  involving  nothing  less  than 
the  degree  of  hearty  credence  to  be  given  to  the  very 
first  page  in  God's  written  revelation,  this  must  be  set- 
tled, and  settled  from  the  Bible  side,  or  there  comes  in 
a  flood  of  unbelief  in  all  Scripture  too  fearful  to  contem- 
plate. We  say  all  Scripture  ;  for  there  is  really  no 
other  place  after  this,  where  any  holding  barrier  can  be 
erected.  At  any  point  lower  down,  the  torrent  comes 
rushing  on  with  the  accumulated  force  of  all  that  has 
given  way  above.  Creation  gone — its  place  in  the 
Scripture  left  a  blank,  or  what  is  worse,  a  lying  myth, 
who  will  give  credence  to  the  account  of  the  flood  in  the 
demands  of  its  historic  exactness,  or  regard  the  succeed- 
ing events  in  any  other  than  their  loosest  legendary 
aspect  ?  The  Patriarchs  become  dim  mythological  sha- 
dows;  the  God  of  the  Patriarchs  a  ^scs  'n'ftr^wio?^  a  pa- 
trial  deity,  to  rank  hereafter  with  Baal,  or  Thor,  or  Ju- 
piter. Sinai  can  never  wholly  lose  its  grandeur,  but  it 
is  the  grandeur  of  a  gloomy  and  terrible  myth.  Moses 
vanishes  through  the  "Ivory  Gate,"  and  prophets  follow 
him  to  the  land  of  lying  dreams.  And  so  of  Ilim  of 
whom  Moses  and  the  Prophets  wrote.  The  historical 
Jesus  departs  with  the  rest  of  the  long  ghostly  proces- 


16  liNTRODUOTORY    VIEW. 

sion.  All  is  gone  but  the  babble  of  the  ideal  Christ,  and 
how  long  would  that  poor  shadow  linger  in  the  rapidly 
deepening  twilight  that  must  follow  the  real  setting  sun. 
We  wake  from  dreams,  so  called  ;  but  it  is  to  a  reality 
insupportable.  We  are  suftbcated  with  its  appalling 
density.  It  is  like  a  man  who  starts  up  from  a  vision, 
it  may  be  a  fearful  one,  (for  all  existence  is  such,)  but 
only  to  find  himself  in  a  still  more  fearful  horror  of  great 
and  terrible  darkness.  Should  the  Avorld  ever  come  to 
this,  then  might  we  know  what  light  there  is  in  geology, 
or  with  Avhat  propriety  it  claims  to  be  called  a  revelation. 
But  we  turn  from  the  picture  as  one  too  awful  to  con- 
template. Instead  of  dwelling  on  such  an  appalling 
view,  it  is  sufficient,  for  our  present  argument,  to  present 
two  general  statements  Avhose  substantial  truth  every 
serious  reader  must  at  once  perceive.  1st.  There  would 
be  no  belief  in  revelation  worth  the  name,  one  generation 
after  the  common  rejection  of  the  absolute  verity  of  the 
Mosaic  account.  2d.  There  is  no  hearty  faith  in  such 
account  when  it  depends  wholly  or  mainly  upon  scientific 
assumptions,  or  reconciliations  so  called,  forced  upon  it 
from  without.  The  Bible  is  to  be  intejyreted,  not  recon- 
ciled with  anything  but  itself.  The  very  thought  is 
almost  equivalent  to  a  rejection.  We  are  even  tempto.l 
to  say  that  it  is  actually  more  insulting  than  frank,  and 
it  may  be,  sorrowing,  unbelief. 

We  cannot  overrate  the  importance  of  a  right  faitli  in 
this  first  chapter  of  Genesis.  The  difficulty,  we  repeat, 
whether  regarded  as  foreign  or  intrinsic,  was  pressing 
hard,  and  must  be  met  in  some  way,  not  by  scientific 
reconciliations,  but  by  fair  and  thorough  exegesis.  To 
do  this,  or  anything  towards  it,  might  seem  an  ambitious 


GROUND    ARGUMENT.  17 

attempt  for  a  layman,  but  theologians  were  in  a  good 
measure  standing  aloof.  Professional  Biblical  scholars 
were  occupied  with  outside  questions  of  style,  of  Scrip- 
ture natural  history,  or  the  pertinency  of  certain  words 
and  texts  to  some  exciting  topics  of  the  day,  falUng,  in 
importance,  immeasurably  below  the  truthfulness  of  the 
creative  history.  The  attempt,  therefore,  was  made  — 
we  will  not  say  the  first,  but  the  first  to  any  considerable 
length  and  with  a  professed  exclusion  of  outside  scien- 
tific theories  that  might  aifect  the  fair  hermeneutical 
result.  It  is  not  for  us  to  speak  of  any  merits  of  that 
work.  No  one  is  more  sensible  than  the  writer,  of  its 
many  and  serious  defects.  Still,  it  might  be  said,  some 
views  of  interest  were  opened ;  some  new  ground  was 
taken,  in  respect  to  which  the  author  looked  with  anxiety 
to  the  examination  of  other  Biblical  scholars.  He  feared 
their  adverse  decision,  not  so  much  for  his  own,  as  for 
the  great  question's  sake.  Especially  was  this  anxiety 
felt  in  respect  to  the  reasoning  about  the  great  time- 
words  that  are  so  strangely  used  in  the  ancient  Shemitic 
dialects,  and  the  interpretations  given  to  them.  Here 
was  the  foundation  of  all  the  other  argument.  Here,  it 
was  thought,  was  found  that  peculiar  feature  in  the 
ancient  thinking  which  relieved  all  the  other  interpreta- 
tions from  the  forced,  or  the  mere  possible,  aspect. 
Here,  if  the  view  could  be  sustained,  was  that  idea 
which  the  modern  theology,  and  the  modern  concep- 
tion of  God's  kingdom,  had  lost  sight  of,  and  which,  if 
it  could  be  revived  and  shown  to  have  a  true  ground  in 
the  human  thinking,  and  especially  the  earliest  human 
thinking,  would  make  to  appear  natural  and  easy  what 
otherwise  would  have  only  a  constrained,  and  therefore 


18  INTRODUCTORY   VIEW. 

never  satisfying,  accommodation  to  pressing  outside  diffi- 
culties. Could  the  old  idea  of  divided  instead  of  blank 
eternities,  (past  and  future,)  or,  in  other  ^vords,  the 
doctrine  of  olams  and  ceons  as  taught  in  the  book,  be 
maintained,  even  so  far  as  to  entitle  it  to  some  share  of 
serious  consideration,  then  the  indefinite  creative  day 
could  be  received  with  little  difficulty  as  an  interpreta- 
tion not  only  possible,  or  speciously  probable,  but  as 
most  truly  in  harmony  with  the  simplest  and  earliest  con- 
ceptions of  the  earliest  human  minds.  We  say,  then, 
for  the  great  question's  sake  ;  for  if  any,  whether  scien- 
tific or  religious,  regard  the  doctrine  of  indefinite  creative 
days  as  most  indispensable  for  their  cherished  recon- 
ciliation, we  see  no  other  line  of  argument  on  which  there 
is  any  fairer  prospect,  or  indeed  any  prospect  at  all,  of 
its  being  made  out.  Other  views,  such  as  those  derived 
from  the  merely  metaphorical  sense  of  the  word  day,  of 
which  examples  enough  can  be  found,  may  furnish  a  pos- 
sibility, a  probability,  nay,  more,  a  captivating  specious- 
ness ;  but  the  mind  does  not  rest  in  them,  aside  from 
such  a  conviction  in  respect  to  the  ancient  thought. 

Whatever  its  demerits,  the  very  attempt  was  entitled 
to  respect  and  respectful  criticism.  And  such  it  has 
received.  The  author  would  be  ungrateful  to  complain 
of  its  reception  by  an  approving  press  and  an  approving 
public.  Still  more  encouraging  are  the  private  commu- 
nications from  readers,  and  that  too  of  no  low  standing 
in  our  scholarly  and  literary  world,  professing  gratitude 
for  relief  from  serious  and  painful  difficulty.  Of  five 
extended  reviews,  three  have  been  warmly  favorable, 
two  bitterly  hostile,  agreeing  in  the  spirit  of  the  assault, 
though  disagreeing  in  almost  everything  else.     It  has 


SCIENCE   AND    THE   EIELE.  19 

been  the  singular  fortune  of  the  book  to  be  thus  assojlccl 
at  the  same  time,  from  two  directly  opposite  quarters, 
and  that,  too,  ^vith  an  asperity  of  feehng  beyond  what 
usually  arises  from  any  mere  literary  or  scientific  antago- 
nism. Another  noteworthy  circumstance  is,  that  in  two 
long  and  labored  attacks  there  should  not  have  been  met 
a  single  0)ie  of  those  Biblical  interpretations  whose 
strength  or  weakness  constitute  the  real  merit  or  demerit 
of  the  argument.  The  Editor  of  the  Literary  and  The- 
logical  Journal  is  so  confident  of  having  slain  all  the  geo- 
logists, and  so  unshakably  certain,  moreover,  that  day 
means  daij^  and  can  mean  nothing  else,  except  in  pro};>hccy, 
whore  it  denotes  exactly  365  days  5  hours  and  a  half, 
that  he  probably  thinks  any  matter  of  interpretation  on 
the  other  side  unworthy  of  serious  notice.  The  question 
is  with  him  too  plain  for  argument.  The  Silliman  Pro- 
fessor of  Mineralogy  and  Geology  in  Yale  College  seems 
to  ignore  this  whole  department  for  another  reason. 
Doubtless  he  could  have  shown  himself  at  home  in  it 
had  he  chosen,  but  there  was  no  need  of  it.  It  might 
have  been  of  some  value  in  the  daj^s  of  the  old  ignorance, 
when  the  best  way  of  getting  at  the  meaning  of  the  Bible 
v,-as  thought  to  be  the  study  of  the  Bible,  but  now  science 
is  the  light  of  the  age ;  "  Science  and  the  Bible"  makes 
a  very  euphonic  heading  for  an  article  in  a  Review,  but 
the  harmony  itself  must  be  made  out  from  the  former. 
In  much  of  the  current  thinking  of  the  day,  the  Bible  holds 
a  place  very  similar  to  that  of  the  Japanese  Mikado,  or 
Spiritual  Emperor,  who  has  a  court  but  no  soldiers.  It 
is  to  be  held  in  great  historical  veneration,  but  science 
is  the  real  monarch.  To  go  to  Scripture,  therefore,  to 
find  the  evidence  of  this  concordat  is  superfluous  work. 


20  IXTROLUCTORY    VIEW. 

It  has  even  been  construed  into  disrespect  for  tlic  higher 
authority.  Of  course  the  Bible  must  agree  ^vith  science, 
that  is,  whatever  certain  scientific  men  saj  is  science, 
although  other  scientific  men  deny  both  the  science  and 
the  theology.  "  Must  not  all  truth  be  consistent  ?"  On 
the  score  of  such  profundities  as  these,  the  Professor  would 
seem  to  resent  the  Biblical  efi"ort  as  making  an  unlawful 
entry  into  his  jealously  guarded  domain.  To  have  put 
the  two  authorities  on  a  par  might  have  been  tolerated, 
thougli  in  the  scientific  parallelism  science  generally 
comes  first ;  but  that  may  be  for  the  sake  of  euphony 
— "  Science  and  the  Bible"  being  rather  more  rj-thmical 
than  "  The  Bible  and  Science."  This,  we  say,  might 
have  been  tolerated;  but  to  represent  science  as  vastly 
below  revelation,  not  only  in  this  thing  and  that  thing, 
but  in  whatever  the  latter  professes  to  teach  us, —  'to 
speak  of  the  changing  language  of  human  science  as 
altogether  unfitted  to  convey  the  eternal  verities  of  God's 
word  —  to  maintain  that  its  technics,  and  boasted  formu- 
las, may,  in  some  remote  latter  day,  sound  obsolete  and 
childish  —  to  hint,  that  gravities  may  yet  go  the  way  of 
vortices  and  epicycles,  that  the  Newtonian  system  nttiy, 
in  time,  be  regarded  as  but  an  advance  on  the  Ptolemaic, 
and  the  present  geology  looked  upon,  in  some  future 
age,  in  very  much  the  same  light  that  we  now  regard 
the  Aristotelian  meteorology — to  argue  that  the  j.)erma- 
nent  and  the  substantial  is  to  be  sought  in  the  Scriptures, 
while  science  can  never  get  above  the  transient  and  the 
phenomenal  without  bringing  in  ideas  from  other  regions 
that  lie  beyond  its  own  true  domain, —  above  all,  to  teach 
that  whenever  God  utters  his  voice  from  '*  Ilis  own  Holy 
Temple,"  all  science,  and  all  philosophy  even,  which  is 


SCIENTIFIC   BOASTING.  21 

a  higher  thing  than  science,  "  should  keep  silence  before 
Him" — this  was  resented  as  an  indignity.  Science 
was  insulted,  forsooth,  and  greatly  wronged,  although  all 
that  was  said  against  her,  or  about  lier,  was  said  in  this 
relation,  and  fell  far  within  the  truth  and  spirit  of  the 
above  statements. 

In  assuming  such  a  championship  of  science,  and  such 
an  imaginary  wrong.  Professor  Dana  well  knew  the 
spirit  of  the  age  in  which,  and  for  which  ho  Avrote,  as 
well  as  the  amount  of  moral  courage  required.  It  was 
an  easy  task,  this  writing  a  eulogy  on  Hercules.  Was 
not  science  ridding  the  world  of  monsters  ?  Had  it  not 
invented  steam  engines,  and  telegraphs,  and  daguerreo- 
types ?  Had  it  not,  in  the  language  of  that  Epicurean 
bard  of  old,  who  boasts  so  much  like  a  modern  lecturer, 
driven  superstition  from  its  haunts  —  that  horrid  mon- 
ster — 

Quse  caput  a  cceli  regiouibus  obteudebnt 
Horribili  super  ailspectu  moi-talibus  installs  ; 
Humnna  ante  oculos  feJc  quom  vita  jaceret 
In  tcrris,  ohprcssa  gravi  suh  rdigiotic. 

Had  it  not  delivered  us  from  the  fear  of  comets  and  fall- 
ing stars,  as  say  all  the  school  books  in  their  enumera- 
tion of  scientific  utilities  ?  Had  it  not  banished  witchcraft 
fi-om  the  earth,  although  of  the  modern  spiritualism  it 
hardly  knew  what  to  say, —  this,  new  power  talking  itself 
so  scientifically,  and  having  already  drawn  some  of  scien- 
tific note,  both  here  and  abroad,  within  its  magic  circle. 
I)ut  its  greatest  achievement  was  its  patronage  of  the 
Scriptures,  although  here  there  has  been  no  little  divi- 
sion in  its  ranks, —  not  a  few,  who  claim  free  thought, 
regarding  this  as  a  burden  which  science  should  not  be 
)'equired  to  carry. 


22  INTRODUCTORY   VIEW. 

Now  we  are  not  much  afraid  of  being  mistaken  in  the 
truth  or  spirit  of  these  remarks.  There  are  scientific 
men  of  lovehest  pictj,  of  most  religious  modesty.  There 
are  men  of  religious  science,  in  distinction  from  a  scien- 
tifiie  religionism, — men,  Avho,  although  they  revere  both 
names,  would  rather  be  called  the  followers  of  Kepler 
than  of  Galileo.  There  are  writers,  late  writers,  and 
those  too  whose  works  exhibit  science  of  the  highest 
order,  whose  references  to  the  Bible,  and  quotations  from 
the  Bible,  have  some  heart  in  them.  To  mention  names 
might  seem  invidious.*  But  such  men  are  among  us,  and 
they  must  know,  and  feel,  that  the  representation  given  of 
the  position  of  science  in  respect  to  the  Bible  is  not  only 
correct,  but  the  only  one  consistent  with  even  the  lowest 
honor  that  can  be  conceded  to  a  true  revelation  —  a  true 
voice  from  the  invisible  supernatural  world.  Tliey  must 
feel,  too,  that  the  truest  honor  of  science  arises  to  her 
ii'om  her  recognizing  and  modestly  taking  this  position. 
Such  men  must  know  and  acknowledge  that  there  has 
been,  and  is  3'et,  an  irreligious  spirit  manifested  by  not 
a  few  of  highest  scientific  name,  whilst,  in  other  quarters, 
there  is  an  assumption  of  patronage,  which,  though  less 
hostile  to  the  Bible,  is  hardly  less  odious.  They  can  not 
think  of  denying  such  well-settled  facts.  With  men  like 
these  the  writer  v/ould  deeply  regret  any  diflfercnce  of 
opinion — much  more  would  he  regret,  if,  in  his  own  one- 
sided zeal,  perhaps,  for  deeply-cherished  views,  he  may 
have  uttered  a  word,  or  thought,  wounding  to  profes- 

"There  is  one  we  cau  not  help  refeniug  to.  No  oue  can  read  Lieuten- 
ant M.vuuy 's  Physical  Geography  of  the  Sea,  without  feeling  that  the  Bilila 
lies  much  nearer  to  liis  heart  than  any  amount  of  physical  knowledge. 


TWO   CLASSES   OF   SCIENTIFIC   MEN.  23 

sional  pride,  or  derogatory  to  the  honorable  love  of  hon- 
orable and  cherished  pursuits. 

But  there  is  another  scientific  spirit  to  which  we  make 
neither  concession  nor  apology.  It  is  not  so  high  nor  so 
philosophical  as  the  other,  but  it  is  more  general,  as  it  is 
more  superficial  in  its  general  outside  thinking,  while  it 
has  accordingly  more  command  of  the  ear  and  mind  of 
the  age.  It  is  the  pretentious,  noisy,  arrogant  science. 
We  say  nothing  of  its  merits  or  demerits  in  its  own  field  ; 
but  it  is  thus  justly  characterized,  because  it  claims  to 
be  itself  the  age,  and  asserts  a  superiority  over  all  other 
departments,  and  all  other  forms  of  thought.  Some- 
times, and  often,  as  every  intelligent  man  knows,  it  is 
decidedly  infidel,  hostilely  and  contemptuously  anti-bib- 
lical. It  seeks  no  '•  reconciliation  ;"  it  cares  nothing  for 
"  harmonies ;"  it  rather  spurns  them  both.  At  other 
times  it  graciously  accepts  the  Scriptures  as  containing 
a  collateral  revelation,  but  one  that  must  first  be  put  in 
harmony  with  herself.  Science  —  this  kind  of  science  — 
and  whenever  the  word  is  used  by  us  in  a  manner  to  call 
in  question  its  arrogant  claims,  let  it  be  so  understood  — 
this  science  assumes  to  reveal  the  higher  and  the  older 
law,  and  when  she  speaks,  what  have  Bible  men  to  do 
but  to  pull  up  "  their  stakes"  and  "  lengthen  their  cords," 
and  follow  on  without  venturing  even  to  look  into  their 
travelRng  directory  to  see  where  they  are  going.  There 
is,  for  example,  Professor  Dana's  highly  eulogized  friend 
Agassiz,  whom  in  one  place  he  would  commend  to  the 
disparagement  of  the  author  of  the  book.  We  have  all 
respect  for  him  as  a  man  of  highest  rank  in  his  own  de- 
partment of  science  ;  but  he  is  preparing  for  a  new  move  ; 
or  rather,  he  has  already  made  a  new  move ;   and  in 


24  ,  INTRODUCTORY   VIEW. 

prompt  correspondence  with  it,  some  in  the  theological 
•world,  yes  in  the  evangelical  part  of  it  so  called,  are  over- 
hauling their  creeds  and  dogmas,  and  apparently  packing 
up  for  a  start.  This  question  of  the  unity  of  the  human 
race,  and  their  descent  from  one  primus  homo,  diflfers 
widely  from  the  geological  question,  important  as  that 
may  be.  The  point  presented  is  deeply  vital,  not  only 
to  the  historical,  but  to  the  central  faith.  The  difficul- 
ties raised  respecting  the  manner  and  chronology  of  cre- 
ation, may  affiict  our  belief  most  seriously,  yet  indirectly. 
Revelation  might  live,  perhaps,  though  thus  cruelly  mu- 
tilated in  the  very  fore-face.  Even  if  compelled  to  sur- 
render chapter  after  chapter,  and  book  after  book,  the 
believing  spirit  would  hold  on  to  the  last  member  that 
gave  any  evidence  of  historic  vitality.  It  would  cling 
to  the  last  plank  of  the  broken  vessel.  But  this  latter 
move  of  science  touches  the  very  core  of  Christianity ; 
the  assailed  fact,  or  dogma,  intertwines  itself  with  truth 
that  can  no  more  be  separated  from  it  than  the  blood 
from  the  heart.  And  yet,  even  here,  it  is  thought  by 
some  —  yea,  the  opinion  has  been  hazarded  in  the  very 
schools  of  the  Prophets  —  that  we  must  not  be  rash  in 
affirming  confidently  what  the  Bible  docs  or  does  not 
teach,  until  we  hear  what  science  has  to  say.  Let  her 
make  her  move,  and  then  it  will  be  time  enough  to  see 
whether  the  doctrines  of  the  Fall,  of  the  Primal  Covenant, 
of  the  Federal  Headship,  of  the  Redemption,  and  even  of 
the  ''Incarnate  Mystery,"  (that  wondrous  thought  that 
has  heretofore  kept  its  place  in  all  views  of  the  human 
ruin  and  recover}',  and  which  even  the  freest  Christianity 
has  been  reluctant  wholly  to  part  with,)  may  not  possibly 
be  so  revised  as  to  meet  the  case.     The  Church  is  advised 


THE   EELIGIOUS   BiaOTRr.  25 

to  maintain,  in  the  mean  while,  a  philosophic  calmness, 
though  science  should  affirm  us  to  be  ten  thousand  instead 
of  one,  or  take  the  unphilosophical,  as  well  as  seemingly 
anti-biblical,  ground,  that  nature  and  species  are  mere 
terms  of  outward  classification — that  they  are  words  of 
quantity  grounded  on  the  more  or  less  of  an  ever  unde- 
finable  resemblance,  instead  of  the  fact  of  an  historic  germ 
that  can  only  be  proved  or  disproved  by  revelation,  and 
in  which  the  present  many  historically  meet  at  a  point 
where  they  are  actually  as  well  as  generically  one.  It 
is  in  this  way,  and  from  such  examples,  we  account  for 
the  feeling  that  the  Bible  has  little  to  do  with  any  physi- 
cal questions — that  it  has  little  to  do  with  the  origin 
either  of  the  earth  or  man,  and  that,  therefore,  interpre- 
tation in  respect  to  them,  is  so  ignored,  yea,  treated  as 
a  positive  disrespect  to  science,  should  it  be  maintained  — 
as  in  such  interpretation  can  not  well  be  avoided— ^ that 
when  God  speaks,  all  human  knowledge,  and  human  dis- 
covery, should  take  the  lower  place.  It  is  this  spirit 
which,  as  we  shall  attempt  to  show  in  its  connection,  is 
the  real  naturalism. 

But  it  is  in  their  temper,  rather  than  in  their  positions, 
that  these  two  reviews  do  most  especially  resemble -each 
other.  It  is  here  that  the  religious  and  scientific  bigotry 
can  hardly  be  distinguished.  There  is,  however,  a  dif- 
ference. The  first  is  bad  enough,  but  it  is,  after  all, 
more  excusable  than  the  second.  The  religious  bigot 
thinks,  at  least,  that  he  has  a  holy  motive.  He  knows 
not  himself,  of  course  ;  but  the  very  ground  and  reason 
of  his  self-deception,  make  his  zeal  a  higher  thing,  and 
a  better  thing,  than  the  scientific  bitterness  that  knows- 
no  such  palliation.     He  is  contending  with  the  infidels,^ 

3 


26  INTRODUCTORY   VIEW. 

not  the  well-known  enemies  of  the  common  Christianity, 
but  those  whom  h-e  chooses  to  call  "  infidels  in  disguise," 
because  they  may  question  in  any  sense  the  infallibility 
of  his  own  interpretations.  He  is  a  "  defender  of  the 
faith,"  and  every  notion  he  has  derived  from  his  own 
traditions  is  a  precious  portion  of  that  faith  ;  and  every 
man  is,  of  course,  an  infidel  who  does  not  subscribe]  to 
it  precisely  as  he  expounds  it,  or  who  does  not  even  an- 
athematize errorists  as  he  anathematizes  them.  He  has. 
therefore,  some  plea  to  which  the  scientific  bigotry  caii 
lay  no  claim.  And  yet,  malevolent  as  this  latter  showf^ 
itself  to  be,  degrading  as  it  is  to  that  science  and  Htera- 
ture  which  boast  so  much  of  refining  our  poor  human 
nature,  still  is  it  strangely  regarded  by  the  world  as  the 
more  respectable  of  the  two.  Its  voice,  in  the  present 
age  at  least,  has  the  greater  weight,  and  this  is  the  rea- 
son why  we  bestow  upon  it  the  greater  share  of  attention. 
The  religious  bigot,  after  all,  can  not  do  much  ;  at 
least  now  a  days.  He  is  fighting  valiantly  against  the 
infidels,  but  the  real  infidels  —  and  there  are  still  some 
such  —  are  not  at  all  afraid  of  him.  Indeed,  they  set 
great  store  by  this  faithful  sentinel.  Nothing  delights  them 
more  than  to  hear  his  sharp  cry  ever  ringing  out,  not 
against  the  real  invaders,  but  the  moat  honest  and  earnest 
defenders  of  revelation.  Sometimes  they  will  even  laud 
him  —  we  have  known  citable  cases  of  this  very  thing  — 
for  his  boldness,  his  frankness,  his  outspeaking,  honest 
zeal.  Rejecting,  as  they  do,  the  whole  idea  of  a  super- 
natural revelation,  yet,  say  they,  if  there  is  meaning  to  it 
at  all,  this  honest  man  has  got  it.  The  First  of  Genesis 
is  manifest  fable,  to  be  sure,  but  he  clearly  has  the  only 
sense,  and  that  shows  it  to  be  a  fable.     Nothing  can  be 


THE   SCIENTIFIC   BIGOTRY.  27 

plainer,  they  say,  to  any  man  of  seiise,  than  that  all  this 
talk  about  the  Bible  and  the  Church  is  of  things  in  nuhi- 
hus,  and  the  lauded  harmony  of  "  science  and  religion" 
all  a  modern  myth ;  but  then,  his  nonsense  is  as  good  as 
their  nonsense,  and  a  great  deal  more  honest.  Anything, 
in  short,  to  bring  the  Bible  into  disrepute,  and  with  mate- 
rials for  this  his  infallibility  most  abundantly  furnishes 
them. 

But  the  scientific  bigotry  is  more  respectable  —  claims 
to  be  so  at  least — whether  deservedly  or  not.  It  has, 
therefore,  the  more  influence  with  another  and  wider  class, 
and  for  a  somewhat  different  reason.  There  are  two 
causes  for  this  wider  influence.  One  is  a  diminution  of 
a  controlhng  and  exclusive  faith  in  the  Scriptures, —  ex- 
(?lusive,  we  mean,  in  all  matters  of  which  they  profess 
to  treat  —  the  other  the  disproportionate  space  in  the 
common  mind,  occupied  by  what  is  now  called  science. 
Our  first  proposition  may  seem  a  very  bold  one.  Some 
would  say  it  is  utterly  false  and  unjust.  If  there  is  any 
thing  which  peculiarly  marks  the  age,  they  would  con- 
tend, it  is  the  direct  contrary  of  what  is  imphed  in  the 
assertion.  First  a,ppearances,  perhaps,  might  justify 
such  an  indignant  protest.  It  is  certainly  an  age  famous 
for  its  laudation  of  the  Bible,  but  still,  we  venture  to  say 
it,  with  a  corresponding  diminution  of  a  hving  faith  in  it 
as  the  real  Word  of  God,  which  is  indeed  to  control  our 
■ethics,  our  pohtics,  our  literature,  our  philosophy,  yea, 
our  science  too,  if  between  it  and  that  science,  or  any 
assumptions  of  that  science,  we  discover  a  difference 
^Yhich  no  fair,  honest,  hearty  effort  of  our  minds  will 
onable  us  to  reconcile  —  a  faith  that  in  such  a  case  would 
not  ride  over  appearances,  being  little  better  than  no 


28  INTRODUCTORY   VIEW. 

faith  at  all.  Yes,  we  laud  the  Scriptures ;  different 
classes  of  men  seem  to  vie  with  each  other  in  lauding  the 
Scriptures.  The  Bible  !  is  it  not  the  rehgion  of  Protes- 
tants ?  Is  it  not  the  bulwark  of  our  liberties  ?  "We 
eulogise  it  on  the  platform  ;  we  fight  for  it  in  our  common 
schools ;  we  make  speeches  about  it  on  all  occasions. 
But  has  it  a  corresponding  influence,  or  anything  like  a 
corresponding  influence,  on  the  general  mind  of  the  age  'i 
This  is  the  test.  Otherwise  our  pompous  eulogies  are 
the  very  things  to  cast  suspicion  upon  the  strength  and 
heartiness  of  the  general  faith.  Take  an  age  when  there 
was  no  doubt  of  the  power  of  the  Bible  and  a  Bible-taught 
theology, —  when  they  controlled  all  movements,  and  en- 
tered into  every  department  of  thought.  Such  an  age 
is  not  distinguished  for  its  eulogies  on  the  Word  of  God. 
There  is  something  too  hearty  in  its  faith  to  allow  of  it, 
or  make  it  necessary.  All  the  writings  of  all  the  Ushers, 
of  all  the  Hookers,  of  all  the  old  divines  of  Holland, 
Scotland,  England,  and  New-England,  do  not  contain  so 
much  laudation  of  the  Bible  as  one  modern  sermon,  or 
one  modern  platfjrm  speech.  But  after  all,  what  is  its 
influence  as  a  vital  power  entering  deeply  into  the  mind 
of  the  age  ?  We  say  the  mind  of  the  age,  for  there  are 
doubtless  individuals,  and  very  many  of  them,  in  whose 
souls  the  claim  of  a  divine  revelation,  instead  of  being 
relaxed,  has  only  taken  a  firmer  hold.  The  rise  of  other 
powers,  and  their  preponderance  in  the  general  thinking, 
has  only  driven  them  more  closely  and  trustingly  to  tlie 
Word  of  God.  There  arc  men  to  whom  it  is  their  one 
book,  their  sole  authority.  There  arc  those  to  whom, 
without  the  Bible,  the  universe  is  shrouded  in  darkness 
—  to  whom,  without  it,  all  science,  and  all  philosophy, 


LAUDATION   OF   THE   SCRIPTURES.  29 

would  give  but  a  spectral  light  —  to  ■whom,  without  it, 
geology,  boasting  geology,  would  be  but  a  lamp  in  the 
catacombs,  a  poor  mummy  light  which  we  might  faintly 
see,  indeed,  but  could  see  nothing  by  it,  read  nothing  by 
it,' even  of  the  greatest  of  physical  truths,  our  origin, 
much  less  aught  of  the  still  deeper  mysteries  that  gather 
round  the  questions  of  destiny  and  salvation.  Such  men 
are  not  much  given  to  praising  the  Bible  as  the  founda- 
tion of  our  liberties,  or  the  great  instrument  of  civiliza- 
tion. Their  faith  is  not  easy  enough  for  that.  They 
find  in  it  too  many  difficulties.  They  see  in  it  those 
great  and  terrible  truths  of  salvation  which  throw  into 
the  shade  all  other  estimates  of  its  value  as  connected 
with  even  the  highest  aspects  of  life  that  are  still  but 
secularities.  Neither  do  they  claim  any  intellectual 
merit  for  their  faith,  even  where  they  feel  that  they  have 
as  good  a  right  to  do  so  as  any  who  challenge  to  them- 
selves, and  to  their  pursuits,  a  higher  and  more  expan- 
sive range  of  thought.  They  can  not,  they  dare  not, 
disbelieve  the  Scriptures.  The  feeling  has  been  sown 
deep  in  their  infancy ;  it  has  grown  with  their  nurture 
and  their  culture  ;  it  has  connected  itself,  perhaps,  with 
some  pecuUar  experience  having  more  of  the  Biblical 
element  than  is  now  usual,  and  thus,  in  all  these  ways 
confirmed  itself,  not  as  a  blind  superstition,  but  by  leading 
to  that  hearty  study  of  the  Scriptures  which  furnishes 
their  strongest  evidence,  and  without  which  the  Bible 
is  never  truly  believed,  either  by  an  individual  or  an  age. 
It  becomes  their  "  meditation  by  day  and  by  night"  — 
"  sweeter  than  honey  and  the  honey  comb ;"  and  thus, 
whether  they  have  any  great  science  or  not,  it  "  maketh 
them  wiser  than  their  enemies  that  be  round  about  them." 


30  INTRODUCTORY   VIEW. 

Yet  still  wc  venture  to  say  it,  hovrever  rash  it  may 
seem  in  us,  there  is  in  much  of  this  religious  world,  espe- 
cially as  exhibited  in  its  more  conventional  and  secular 
aspects,  a  poor  diluted  faith,  a  poor  shivering  faith  that 
can  not  keep  itself  warm  from  the  Scriptures,  and  so  it 
runs  to  science  and  everything  else.  Its  want  of  strength 
and  earnestness  is  very  much  in  proportion  to  the  noise 
it  makes  about  the  Bible  and  the  so-called  "  Harmony 
of  Science  and  Revelation  ;"  or  "  the  two  revelations," 
as  it  is  fond  of  styling  them.  We  have  no  doubt  of  its 
honesty,  or  its  purity  as  far  as  it  goes.  This  belief  is 
genuine — it  has  a  value  in  the  preservation  of  the  soul's 
health,  and  its  ultimate  salvation.  It  has  a  sincere  re- 
gard for  the  Bible,  but  it  is  so  immersed  in  secularity, 
and  secularizing  movements  of  reform  —  its  Christianity  is 
so  much  of  this  world,  and  allies  itself  with  so  many  collat- 
eral influences  from  the  world,  that  it  has  no  time,  and 
if  it  had  time,  has  not  heart  enough  to  arouse,  or  strength 
enough  to  sustain,  that  whole-souled  study  of  the  Scrip- 
tures, that "  meditation  therein  by  day  and  by  night,"  that 
'Consequent  devoted  love  of  the  Book,  which  would  teach 
them  wondrous  things  out  of  it  —  thus  making  its  bright 
internal  evidence  the  most  immoveable  support  of  their 
faith.  The  deep  study  of  the  Scriptures  is  essential  to 
any  strong  faith  in  them,  and  could  men  be  induced 
heartily  to  engage  in  it,  it  might  be  recommended  as  the 
best  of  all  cures  for  scepticism,  or  naturalism,  whether  of 
an  individual  or  of  an  age.  But  here  we  are  met  by  a 
difficulty  which  gives  the  proposition  the  appearance  of 
a  paradox.  Without  such  faith  there  will  be  no  such 
study.  The  truth  is,  that  both  are,  at  the  same  time, 
cause  and  effect.     They  must  act  and  re-act  upon  each 


EARNEST   STUDY   OP  THE   SCRIPTURES.  31 

other.  But  without  settlmg  that  difficulty,  it  is  enough 
to  present  the  fact,  which  few  will  deny,  that  the  Bible, 
though  generally  and  honestly  believed,  and  with  much 
interest  manifested  for  its  distribution,  is  not  in  the  heart 
of  the  age,  at  least  as  it  has  been  in  the  heart  of  former 
ages.  It  is  not  so  much  the  one  sole  authority  that  it 
used  to  be,  the  one  great  superseding  authority  in  all 
matters  of  which  it  speaks.  It  is  not  so  much  that  the 
Scriptures  have  been  rejected,  as  that  other  things  have 
come  into  partnership  with  them,  and,  we  may  say,  to 
some  degree  of  superiority  over  them  in  the  control  of 
the  common  thinking — even  the  better  and  more  serious 
common  thinking — of  the  age. 

We  repeat,  then,  the  paradox — the  true  remedy  for 
this  semi-scepticism  which  respects  the  Bible  so  much  — 
which  svyears  by  the  Bible  while  it  serves  other  gods  — 
whether  it  be  the  gods  of  politics,  philanthrophy,  or  sci- 
ence, the  god  of  social  "  ideas,"  or  the  "  god  of  forces" 
—  the  true  remedy  for  this  is  that  devoted  Biblical  study 
of  which  we  have  spoken.  Superficial  reading,  or  mere 
formal  reading,  only  breeds  difficulties  or  indifference ; 
instead  of  light  it  only  reveals  pitfalls  and  stumbling- 
blocks.  A  deeper  study  produces  that  evidence  of  which 
we  read  much  in  the  old  divines  who  lived  just  after  the 
Reformation,  but  which  is  now  seldom  alluded  to  in  modern 
books  either  of  instruction  or  devotion.  It  is  not  the  ex- 
ternal evidence,  commonly  so  called,  or  the  historical 
proof  of  Christianity,  valuable  and  indispensable  as  that 
is  for  all  ages.  It  is  not  that  other  kind  of  evidence 
more  usually  named  the  internal,  but  which  is  as  truly 
external  as  the  first,  whilst  it  has  less  of  its  conclusive- 
ness.    We  mean  by  this,  the  supposed  conformity  of  the 


32  INTRODUCTORY   VIEW. 

Scriptures  to  right  reason,  as  it  is  called,  or  "  the  nature 
of  things" —- there  being  meant  by  this  our  own  views  of 
what  ought  to  be  true  in  theology,  or  ethics,  or  what  we 
conceive  to  be  true  in  science.  This  evidence,  we  say, 
is,  in  one  sense,  as  much  external  to  the  Scriptures  as 
the  historical.  In  both  cases  it  is  a  light  we  bring  to 
the  Bible,  and  not  a  light  we  derive  from  it.  Hence, 
thus  viewed,  both  are  equally  outward — that  is,  outward 
to  the  Bible.  One  is  an  outward  historical  knowledge, 
the  other  an  outward  knowledge  of  mind  or  matter  which 
we  call  science  and  philosophy.  This  second  kind  of 
rationalism,  though  boasting  a  higher  rank,  is  less  con- 
clusive than  the  first.  The  explanation  is,  that  in  the 
one  case  our  reason  is  called  to  judge  of  what  lies  easily 
and  plainly  within  its  nearest  sphere,  such  as  the  mean- 
ing of  words,  the  laws  of  language,  the  fair  principles  of 
interpretation.  In  the  other,  we  bring  to  the  clearing  of 
the  Scriptures  the  very  darkness  they  were  intended  to 
illuminate,  or,  if  we  take  the  road  of  science  commonly 
so  called,  we  enter  upon  a  region  whence  nothing  can 
be  proved  of  the  human,  or  the  mundane  destiny,  because 
the  unknown  so  immensely,  so  infinitely,  we  might  almost 
say,  exceeds  the  known.  We  may  say,  too,  that  in  this 
attempted  proof  of  the  Bible  by  its  conformity  to  what 
we  call  right  reason  and  the  nature  of  things,  the  very 
first  principle  of  the  purest  reason  is  itself  subverted. 
We  measure  the  infinite  by  the  finite.  We  make  our 
thoughts  the  test  of  the  Divine  thoughts,  our  ways  the 
test  of  the  Divine  ways  ;  our  natural  science,  or  natural 
theology,  as  we  call  it,  which  is  but  the  discovery  of  links, 
we  revere  as  the  very  canons  of  that  Divine  wisdom  which 
is  known  only  in  the  revelation  of  hegbmings  or  ends. 


THE  TRUE  INTERNAL  EVIDENCE.         33 

Such  a  proceeding  to  prove  revelation  is,  moreover,  in 
the  very  face  of  the  revelation  to  be  proved.  It  contra- 
dicts some  of  its  sublimest  utterances.  "  Your  thoughts 
are'not  my  thoughts,  saith  the  Lord  ;"  "  neither  are  your 
ways"  (your  ways  of  thinking  and  knowing  as  well  as 
acting)  "  my  ways."  "  For  as  the  heaven?  are  high 
above  the  earth"  (the  strongest  hyperbole  that  language 
can  employ)  "  so  high  are  my  ways  above  your  ways, 
and  my  thoughts  above  your  thoughts."  This  Scriptural 
language  is  evidently  employed  to  denote  things  not  only 
immensely  apart  in  rank  and  magnitude,  but  also  incon- 
ceivably differing  in  kind.  Hence  the  value  of  that 
other  internal  evidence  to  which  we  barely  alluded,  but 
of  which  the  old  divines  are  full.  The  reader  will  not 
often  meet  with  it  in  modern  religious  or  theological 
vrorks,  but  he  will  find  it  most  prominently  and  most 
abundantly  set  forth  in  such  writers  as  Owen,  and  Baxter, 
and  Hooker,  and  Hall.  He  will  meet  with  it  in  those  men 
of  ponderous  learning  and  child-Uke  piety,  the  old  theolo- 
gians of  Holland  who  lived  before  Grotius  and  Grotianism 
had  unspiritualized  that  noble  Church ;  and  we  have  no 
doubt  that  it  might  be  found  in  the  most  religious  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  divines.  It  is  that  internal  evidence 
that  reveals  itself  to  us  by  its  own  light ;  the  light  which 
the  Scriptures  themselves^  have  kindled  in  the  soul.  It 
is  what  Hallyburton,  in  his  reply  to  the  rationalism  of 
Locke,  calls  "  the  Divine  glory  beaming  and  burning 
in  the  Scriptures."  It  is  the  recognition  of  the  majestic 
voice  of  God  speaking  to  us  therein,  and  in  every  part 
It  is  not  simply  the  intellectual  assent  to  the  logical  con- 
sistency of  its  doctrines,  however  defectively  or  partially 
seen;  it  is  not  that  "beautiful  morality"  which  some 


34:  INTRODUCTORY   'S^EW. 

infidels  have  been  so  fond  of  praising ;  it  is  not  the  lofti- 
ness of  its  oratory,  or  the  subhmitj  of  its  poetry,  but  dis- 
tinct from  all  these,  and  above  all  these,  it  is  that  impress 
of  Divine  Autliority  which  comes  from  long,  and  devout, 
and  loving  communion  -with  the  sacred  volume.  It  is 
that  "  satisfying  light,"  evidencing  itself  to  be  true  light 
by  the  fact  that  it  enables  us  to  see,  not  only  itself,  but 
other  things  by  means  of  it,  making  reason  more  clear 
by  revealing  its  limitations,  and  other  knowledge  more 
valuable  by  the  discovery  of  its  true  yet  inferior  position. 
It  is  what  one  has  called  "  the  Divine  majesty  beaming 
in  the  Word."  We  would  not  trust  our  own  lancruawe 
here,  and  so  we  adopt  that  of  the  venerable  and  learned 
men  who  so  loved  the  Scriptures,  and  so  lived  in  the 
Scriptures,  we  may  say,  that  their  mode  of  speaking 
about  them  sounds  mystical,  or  hyperbolical,  to  our  un~ 
biblical  age.  They  were  not  dreamers,  nor  enthusiasts, 
nor  fanatics,  but  sound-minded  men,  noble  scholars,  logi- 
cal interpreters,  keen  analyzers  of  their  own  psychologi- 
cal states.  It  was  not  only  the  Ushers,  and  the  Cud- 
worths,  and  the  Owens  who  spake  thus  —  though  these 
might  well  be  compared  with  the  soberest  scholars  and 
theologians  of  our  own  age,  —  but  the  great  Bacon,  too, 
talks  in  the  same  style  —  the  great  Bacon  whom  so  many 
sciolists  so  ignorantly  worship.  In  the  decline  of  his 
political  and  philosophical  greatness  it  might  have  been, 
but  it  was  after  his  mind  had  been  brought  into  closest 
communion  with  the  Scriptures,  that  he  speaks  of  "  seek- 
ing God  in  nature,  but  finding  him  only  in  his  Word." 
It  was  a  trait  of  the  universal  religious  thinking.  Tlie 
writers  to  whom  we  have  referred  speak  of  it  as  a  reality, 
a  glorious  reality,  not  confined  to  a  few  mystical  dream- 


EXCLUSIVE  AUTHORITY.  35 

ers,  but  belonging  to  the  common  faith  of  common  Chris- 
tians in  that  beUeving  age. 

This  faith  they  regarded  as  supernatural ;  but  whether 
supernatural,  or  having  its  seat  in  the  natural  facul- 
ties of  the  human  soul,  and  in  the  natural  exercise 
thereof,  still  was  it  ever  the  intimate  companion  of  deep 
and  hearty  study  of  the  Scriptures.  It  was  only  by 
intense  meditation  therein,  that  men's  eyes  were  truly 
opened  to  discern  the  glorious  light  in  the  Word  and  thus 
to  "  discover  wondrous  things  out  of  the  Divine  Law,'' 
and  in  no  part  more  wondrous  than  in  this  earliest  record 
of  man  and  the  world.  To  this  hearty  study  of  the  Scrip- 
tures must  the  age  return.  There  must  be  regained  that 
single,  honest,  view  of  the  absolute  authority  of  the  Bible 
in  all  matters  of  which  it  professes  to  treat  or  even  speaks. 
No  other  faith  is  worthy  of  the  name.  A  revelation,  so 
received  as  coming  from  God,  must  be  everything  or  no- 
thing. It  must  be  exclusive  as  v/ell  as  conclusive.  It 
can  allow  no  concurrent,  no  collateral,  authority.  No- 
thing else  that  is  styled  a  revelation,  whether  in  nature 
or  in  history,  can  be  put  on  a  par  with  it,  or,  in  any  sense^ 
placed  in  parallelism  with  it.  Once  admitted,  as  indeed 
the  Divine  supernatural  voice,  nothing  else  can  even  ap- 
proach it, — nothing  else  that  calls  itself  authority  can  hold 
up  its  face  before  it  on  its  own  field.  Among  all  truths  of 
reason  so  called,  we  can  conceive  of  none  more  rational 
than  this.  And  to  this  the  Church  and  the  age  must 
return,  or  give  up  its  loud  talk  about  the  Bible  —  the 
"Bible  and  Science"  —  the  Bible  and  natural  theology 
—  the  Bible  and  democracy  —  the  Bible  the  palladium 
of  our  liberties  —  the  foundation  of  our  social,  civil  and 
religious  rights.     It  may  not  be  prudent  to  say  it,  but  it 


36  INTRODUCTORY   VIEW. 

is  true,  notwithstanding,  and  therefore,  we  will  saj  it, 
that  even  before  the  Reformation,  among  divines  of  the 
Roman  Church,  and  in  the  works  of  the  schoolmen,  writ- 
ten, as  we  are  taught  to  believe,  when  the  Scriptures 
lay  buried  and  unknown,  there  was  more  of  heartj^faith 
in  them  than  can  now  be  discovered  in  the  teachings  of 
some  who  are  the  greatest  praisers  of  the  Bible.     There 
is  more  appearance  of  devout  reverence  ;  there  is  a  more 
spontaneous  deference  as  to  unquestionable  authority; 
there  is  more  of  a  loving  resort  to  them  as  the  ultimate 
decision,  after  philosophy  has  had  her  say,  and  science 
has  delivered  her  message,  whatever  it  might  have  been, 
for  that  or  any  other  age  of  the  world.     If  this  living  on 
the  Scriptures,  as,  next  to  Christ,  the  soul's  truest  food, 
be  the  best  test  of  faith  in  the  Bible,  then  Avill  an  Anselm^ 
an  A  Kempis,  an  Aquinas,  yea,  perhaps,  unknown  souls, 
not  a  few,  from  the  cloister  and  the  cell,  rise  up  in  judg- 
ment against  the  Bible  eulogizers,  and  scientific  harmo- 
nizers  of  the  day.     It  may  not  be  prudent  to  talk  thus, 
but  we  are  certain  that  there  is  truth,  important  truth, 
in  what  we  say,  and  that  the  age  should  hear  it.     We 
appeal  to  serious  men  of  all  theological  parties.     Is  the 
Scriptures  in  the  heart  of  this  age,  as  it  has  been  in  the 
heart  of  former  ages  ?  Is  the  evidence  of  this  in  the  pul- 
pit, in  the  press,  in  the  theology,  or  the  literature  of  the 
day  ?   Does  the  mind,  even  the  religious  mind,  go  spon- 
taneously to  the  Written  Word  ?  for  this  is  the  true  test. 
In  every  difficulty  does  it  first  think  of  the  Bible  ?    In 
all  the  great  questions  of  the  day,  as  they  are  called, 
—  the  social,  political,  moral  questions  —  those  question? 
which  all  depend  so  much,  for  their  truest  solution,  on 
right  views  of  human  destiny  and  its  relation  to  the  invi- 


BIBLICAL   CRITICISM.  37 

sible  worlds,  and  v'here  the  Bible  must  be  supposed  to 
give  some  light,  if  it  give  light  at  all —  on  all  such  ques- 
tions, is  it  the  first  thought,  what  do  the  Scriptures  fairly 
teach,  or  do  they  teach  anything,  either  as  precept  or 
principle,  to  which  all  other  reasoning  can  and  must  be 
made  to  conform  ?  We  talk  much  more  about  the  Bible 
than  ever  the  Puritans,  or  the  Reformers  did ;  is  the  com- 
mon nund,  the  common  religious  mind,  we  mean,  more 
familiar  with  it  than  it  was  in  their  day' — familiar  with 
it,  not  in  the  mere  quotation  of  a  few  pet  texts,  which 
almost  any  party  can  get  out  of  it,  but  in  the  spirit  of 
the  Bible,  and  its  whole  bearing  upon  the  analogy  of  re- 
vealed truth  ?  These  questions  might  be  carried  into  the 
higher  departments.  How  is  it  with  our  professed 
Biblical  study  ?  Does  it  go  into  the  very  marrow  of  the 
Scriptures  ?  We  have  got  rid  of  some  of  the  crudities  of 
former  preachers  and  interpreters,  —  we  have  read  Old 
i\Iortality,  and  can  talk  bravely  of  the  extravagance  of 
the  Kettle-drummles,  and  McBriars,  and  Mucklewraiths, 
though  even  this  has  more  heart  in  it,  and  therefore, 
more  truth  than  much  that  is  conceived  and  written  in 
the  opposite  style.  But  if  there  is  an  absence  of  their 
pecuUar  errors,  there  is  also  an  absence,  much  to  be 
lamented,  of  those  rich  views  of  divine  truth,  in  its 
entire  Bibhcal  harmony,  which  the  old  English  scholars, 
and  the  learned  Leyden  divines  brought  out  of  the  ever- 
suggestive  Word  of  God.  Instead  of  that  direct  deduc- 
tion of  all  high  truth  from  the  Bible  which  is  now  con- 
demned as  mystical,  we  have  the  most  elaborate  discus- 
sions about  the  Bible,  and  about  the  books  of  the  Bible, 
and  the  natural  history  of  the  Bible.  Instead  of  the 
"  analogy  of  faith"  which  led  men  to  regard  each  book 

4 


38  INTRODUCTORY   VIEW. 

as  a  part  of  a  most  perfect  unitj,  such  as  it  certainly 
must  be  if  it  is  God's  Word  in  any  true  sense,  sye  have 
Lowthian  criticisms  on  the  varied  human  styles  of  its 
composers,  all  very  true  indeed,  but  very  subordinate  to 
the  higher  harmony  which  such  a  kind  of  a-iticism  has 
ever  a  tendency  to  keep  out  of  view.  Such  is  the  spirit 
of  much  modern  Biblical  criticism,  rich  as  it  is  in  its  ma- 
chinery of  outward  interpretation.  It  is  fastidious  of  the 
impurities  that  belong  to  the  bucket  rather  than  the  foun- 
tain ;  and,  therefore,  instead  of  drawing  copiously  and 
constantly  from  the  deep  wells  of  pure  Scriptural  thought, 
it  is  ever  on  the  outside,  at  least  in  regard  to  essential 
vital  truth.  In  short,  it  is  ever  about  the  Bible,  as  though 
it  were  a  curiosity  to  be  examined,  rather  than  the  Book 
of  the  Lord  given  to  us  as  a  light  shining  in  a  dark  place, 
and  to  which  everything  else  in  the  mind  of  the  believer 
should  be  so  subordinate,  that  even  if  he  does  not  deri\T 
his  philosophy  and  his  science  from  it,  as  a  direct  text- 
book, he  is,  at  least,  willing  to  say,  and  is  forced  to  say, 
that  he  will  have  and  can  have  no  philosophy,  and  no 
science,  that  are  in  any  sense  really  or  seemingly  at  war 
with  it. 

We  are  far  from  saying  that  the  modern  reception  of 
the  Scriptures  is  not  sincere  and  sound  as  far  as  it  goes. 
Its  greatest  fault  is,  that  it  is  not  exclusive,  as  it  ought 
to  be  if  it  would  be  anything.  It  takes  the  Scriptures 
as  authority,  as  high  authority,  but  not  the  all-controll- 
ing authority,  on  all  matters  of  which  they  speak.  Other 
Lords  have  come  in  and  shared  dominion  with  it.  In 
our  literature  and  our  science  there  is  a  mixture  of  the 
"Jews'  language"  with  "the  speech  of  Ashdod."  Es- 
pecially has  there  been  a  dimming  of  that  highest  evi- 


BIBLE  PRAISED  IN  ITS  SECULAR  ASPECTS.    39 

clence  of  which  Owen,  and  Halliburton,  and  Pascal  speak. 
The  Lowthian  spirit  of  interpretation  sees  it  not,  because 
it  does  not  look  for  it.  Along  with  this  obscure  percep- 
tion of  the  true  divine  majesty  and  authority  speaking 
directly  in  the  Word,  there  is  an  increasing  tendency  to 
laud  the  Scriptures  for  those  more  secular  teachings,  or 
in  those  secular  aspects  of  revealed  truth,  which  are  either 
greatly  subordinate,  or  are  forced  upon  it  altogether. 
Hence  there  is  so  much  mere  talk  about  the  Bible. 
Politicians  magnify  the  Bible.  Are  they  really  going  to 
the  Bible,  drawing  nearer  to  the  Bible,  or  is  the  Bible 
viewed  as  coming  down  to  them  ?  Literary  men  are 
sentimental  about  the  Bible  ;  social  reformers  cant  about 
the  Bible.  The  tendency  sometimes  manifests  itself  in 
an  appearance  which  would  be  ludicrous  were  it  not  pro- 
fane ;  the  bully  chief  of  the  Empire  Club  breaks  up  a 
meeting  of  fanatics,  as  he  calls  them,  because  "  they  abuse 
the  Holy  Bible,"  and  the  vile  makers  of  vile  political  plat- 
forms endorse  the  act,  and  the  spirit  of  it,  in  their  cant- 
ing resolutions  about  our  civil  and  religious  liberties. 
This  is  not  all  hypocrisy ;  the  lowered  position  of  the 
Bible  has  made  men  dread  it  less,  and  so  they  "  respect'''' 
it  more.  They  seek  to  harmonize  it  with  everything, 
and  that  general  ignorance  which  comes  from  the  want 
of  earnest  study,  makes  this,  in  most  cases,  a]  very  easy 
and  accommodating  process.  In  short,  the  Bible  is  a 
favorite  book  of  the  age  ;  it  has  a  most  convenient  store- 
house of  texts  and  mottoes  ;  it  contains  the  articles  of 
our  faith,  although  we  sometimes  have  to  put  them  in  a 
more  philosophical  and  scientific  form.  It  professes, 
indeed,  to  carry  with  it  its  own  credentials,  but  as  a 
general  truth,  men  go  abroad  for  its  evidences. 


40  INTRODUCTORY   VIEW. 

Hence  the  undue  -weiglit  attached  to  scientific  and 
other  foreign  testimonies  to  Christianity.  Science  at  the 
present  day,  in  distinction  from  philosophy  and  theology, 
occupies  a  disproportioned,  and  therefore  injurious  space 
in  the  public  mind.  This  is  especially  true  of  natural 
science,  and  still  more  so  of  that  department  strictly 
called  natural  Idstory,  and  to  -which,  in  other  times,  as 
wise  as  our  own  in  the  philosophy  of  names  as  definitive 
of  ideas,  the  term  science,  would  hardly  have  been  con- 
ceded at  all.  But  whether  that  be  correct  or  not,  it  is 
rather  a  singular  fact  in  the  history  of  human  thinking, 
that  these  very  branches  have  come  to  usurp  the  name 
to  the  exclusion  of  almost  everything  else.  Let  the  word 
science  be  used,  and  how  many,  even  among  the  educated 
who  ought  to  know  better,  never  think  of  Language,  of 
Psychology,  of  Ethics,  of  Political  Science,  of  Theology 
highest  of  all.  Philology — it  is  the  "  study  of  words," 
and  what  are  words  compared  with  shells  and  minerals  ? 
Even  the  Pure  Mathematics  hereby  finds  a  place  except 
as  an  auxiliary  to  some  of  the  usurping  branches.  Che- 
mistry, too,  is  thrown  in  the  back  ground,  while  Concho- 
logy,  INIineralogy,  Icthyology,  come  trooping  up,  paper  in 
hand,  and  demanding  to  be  recognized  not  only  as  very 
respectable  and  very  useful  branches  of  knowledge,  which 
they  certainly  are,  but  as  science  per  se,  in  its  highest 
and  almost  exclusive  import.  These  are,  indeed,  beauti- 
ful pursuits.  "We  do  not  wonder  that  they  are  ardently 
loved  by  those  who  have  time  to  devote  to  them,  and 
who  have  been  drawn  to  their  study  by  temperament  and 
(.'ircumstances  clearly  indicating  them  as  the  paths  of 
knowledge  in  which  they  could  best  connect  their  own 
happiness  with  the  utilities,  and  not  only  the  utilities,  but 


SCIENTIFIC   CONVENTIONS.  41 

the  refinement  of  the  age.  One  of  the  purest  men,  and 
clearest  intellects,  with  whom  the  writer  is  acquainted, 
lias  devoted  himself  for  many  years  to  a  thorough  scien- 
tific hunt  after  .that  mischievous  and  evasive  enemjj  the 
wheat  insect.  He  has  traced  him  through  three  forms  of 
generation,  and  discovered  some  curious  facts  of  develop- 
ment* that  ought  to  make  Professor  Dana  less  confident 
about  his  having  slain  the  Vestiges  of  Creation.  There 
Is,  doubtless,  in  many  others  engaged  in  similar  pursuits 
the  same  earnest  amor  scientice  so  ennobling  to  our  hu- 
manity in  whatever  form  it  may  show  itself,  together  with 
the  same  unwearied  search  of  facts  that  may  subserve 
the  physical  good.  All  honor  to  them; — but  we  appeal 
to  such  men  themselves,  or  to  the  more  serious  and  think- 
ing among  them,  whether  there  has  not  been  too  much 
of  an  arrogant  claiming,  or  at  least  employment,  of  the 
name  science  as  peculiarly,  if  not  exclusively  applicable 
to  these  and  kindred  branches.  Let  any  one  examine 
the  records  of  our  annual  scientific  conventions.  Three- 
fourths  of  their  proceedings  relate  to  natural  history  pro- 
perly so  called.  Of  the  remaining  fourth,  astronomy  has 
a  fair  share  ;  mathematics  pure  brings  out  its  paper  now 
and  then,  whilst  all  else  beyond  this  physical  region,  is 
as  much  ignored  as  though  it  had  no  claim  whatever  to 
the  dignity  of  a  science,  or  the  consideration  of  scientific 
men.  And  so  too  of  the  latter  phrase  —  a  man  of  sci- 
ence;-—let  it  be  mentioned,  and  at  once  some  physical 
ology,  or  some  branch  of  natural  history,  suggests  itself 

'We  refer  here,  not  to  development  from  inanimate  matter,  but  to  some 
.:urious  facts  of  wliat  may  be  called  double  generation — the  immediate  off- 
spring so  unlike  the  parents,  that  they  would  be  regarded  as  a  new  species 
if  the  fact  of  origin  was  unknown. 

4* 


42  INTRODUCTORY   VIEW. 

to  the  common  mind.  It  thinks  immediately  of  shells, 
and  mosses, —  at  the  highest  of  gases,  fossils,  or  tele- 
scopes. Legal  science,  political  science,  ethical  science, 
Biblical  science,  hermeneutical  science  ! — the  terms  in- 
deed are  recognized,  but  they  are  regarded  as  being 
used  by  way  of  accommodation  rather  than  by  intrinsic 
right.  Now  this  utter  distortion  of  names  and  ideas  is  a 
mark  of  a  one-sided,  if  we  may  not  call  it  superficial, 
age.  It  is  the  language  of  a  generation,  and  of  a  think- 
ing, immersed  in  the  physical ;  and  we  protest  against 
it.  It  gives  an  undue  advantage.  In  an  age  when  men 
read  and  talk  far  more  than  they  think,  it  clothes  certain 
opinions  of  a  certain  class  with  an  authority  which  does 
not  belong  to  them.  There  is  a  sufficient  instance  of  this 
in  the  very  example  that  has  called  out  tliese  remarks. 
Why  should  the  dictum  of  a  geologist  be  deferred  to 
on  a  question  of  the  interpretation  of  Scripture  'i  There 
is  no  reason  for  it ;  there  is  every  reason  against  it ;  and 
yet  it  carries  weight,  and  carries  along  with  it  too  the 
timid  religionist,  because  it  comes  forth  under  this  high- 
sounding  name  of  science,  so  unjustly  and  even  absurdly 
'usurped  for  a  department  of  knowledge  extremely  limited 
in  extent,  and  very  far  from  being  the  highest  in  idea 
or  in  aim — in  intellectual  difficulty,  in  intellectual  rank, 
or  even  in  utility  when  judged  by  the  highest  and  truest 
standard. 

In  reply  to  what  is  here  said  about  the  great  dispro- 
portion of  such  subjects  in  scientific  conventions,  it  might, 
perhaps,  be  alleged  that  there  is  a  reason  for  it,  without 
its  being  attributed  to  any  such  usurpation  or  exclusive- 
ness.  The  great  majority  of  the  papers  read  are  on  nat- 
ural history,  or,  at  the  widest,  what  is  called  physical 


PHYSICAL    SCIENCE   POPL'LAR*— AYHY.  43 

science,  because  these  furnish  the  topics  that  are  the 
more  directly  popular,  or  acceptable  to  the  common  think- 
ing. There  is  some  truth  in  such  apology — but  is  it  for 
the  glory  of  this  kind  of  science  that  it  should  be  so  ? 
Does  it  form  an  honorable  ground  for  its  extravagant 
boasting?  Physical  science,  especially  in  the  depart- 
ments to  which  we  have  chiefly  alluded,  is  popular  for 
several  reasons.  In  the  first  place,  it  is  more  easy  of 
acquisition.  To  be  thorough  and  eminent  in  any  one  of 
these  does  indeed  require  a  life  devoted  to  it,  as  to  any 
other  pursuit  in  which  decided  excellence  is  the  aim. 
But  their  general  acquisition,  to  a  respectable  extent, 
lies  within  the  power  of  almost  any  mind  of  ordinary  in- 
telligence and  ordinary  opportunities.  We  do  not  at  all 
wish  to  underrate  them,  although  the  immense  boasting 
they  have  made,  or  that  has  been  made  for  them,  fairly 
justifies  any  attempt  to  reduce  them  to  their  true  place 
in  the  wide  map  of  human  knowledge.  Take  the  one 
which  may  be  said  to  have  the  least  science,  strictly,  of 
them  all — that  is,  is  most  built  on  outward  classification 
instead  of  inward  organic  life  running  up  mto  that  uni- 
versality of  law  and  idea  whose  tendency  is  to  connect 
all  knowledge  that  partakes  of  it  into  one  catholic  thinking. 
Take  Conchology,  for  example ;  even  here  we  concede 
that  to  be  a  good  conchologist  requires  a  peculiar  habit, 
a  peculiar  talent,  and  a  peculiar  and  patient  observation 
that  all  do  not  possess.  An  enthusiastic  devotion  to  it 
is  very  honorable  to  a  man,  if  it  be  accompanied  by  an 
appropriate  modesty ;  but  it  is  very  far  from  requiring 
the  highest  order  of  mind,  and  it  becomes  very  foolish 
when,  on  the  score  of  its  being  so  peculiarly  and  exclusively 
science,  it  challenges  for  its  devotees  a  deference  in  other 


44  INTRODUCTORY   VIEW. 

matters,  and  in  widely  different  if  not  altogether  higher 
departments  of  knowledge.  He  who  makes  himself 
thorough  in  this  department  of  science,  occupies  a  high 
position,  and  ought  to  occupy  a  high  position,  among 
useful  and  intelligent  and  cultivated  men  ;  and  yet  it  is 
true  that  almost  any  one  who  has  any  inclination  for  the 
study,  and  time  for  it  from  other  pursuits,  may  make 
himself  very  respectably  scientific  here  with  little  effort, 
and  in  a  very  short  time.  The  same  is  true  of  Geology, 
the  most  vaunting  of  them  all.  It  calls  out  the  same 
and  no  greater  faculty  of  observation,  no  greater  pow- 
ers of  thinking,  though  connected  with  more  important 
and  interesting  results-.  It  has,  however,  one  peculiar 
"  utility"  that  the  others  do  not  possess.  To  many  minds 
— we  do  not  fear  to  say  what  is  so  fully  borne  out  by 
facts — to  many  minds,  it  has  a  charm  from  the  supposed 
fact  of  its  furnishing  a  ground  of  objection  —  whether 
true  or  false  —  to  the  credibility  of  the  Scriptures.  It  is 
this  which  gives  it  a  large  share  of  its  importance,  and 
none  better  know  the  fact  than  those  of  its  religious, 
Bible-loving  students  who  most  sincerely  wish  to  coun- 
teract its  influence.  We  are  conscious  of  telling  truth 
here,  and  therefore  shrink  not  from  its  assertion.  It  is 
the  general  spirit  more  than  any  facts  of  geological  re- 
search, that  is  hostile  to  the  Scriptures.  It  is  the  gene- 
ral spirit  as  manifested  in  two  ways,  the  bold  and  sneer- 
ing opposition  of  many  Geologists  abroad,  the  apparently 
friendly  but  hardly  less  mischievous  asssumption  of  its 
being  a  sort  of  collateral  and  even  higher  revelation, 
that  is  made  by  others  under  orthodox  influences  in  our 
own  land.  Good  men  and  Christians,  who  are,  at  the 
same  time,  very  "scientific  men,"  are  trying  hard  to 


POPULARITY   OF   GEOLOGY.  45 

counteract  this ;  but  tlie  dishonorable  popularity  vrhich 
the  study  has  derived  from  its  being  supposed  to  minister 
to  this  anti-biblical  spirit,  can  never  be  seriously  affected 
from  the  scientific  side.  Geology  —  serious  Geology  we 
mean — can  never  be  relieved  from  it,  until  thorough, 
honest,  reliable  interpretation  takes  the  place,  and  the 
authority,  of  one-sided  scientific  "  harmonies  of  nature 
and  revelation."  For  the  reasons  we  have  given,  Geology 
is  popular ;  it  is  a  favorite  science  of  the  day,  but  it  really 
demands  no  greater  powers  of  mind  for  its  observations 
or  conclusions  than  other  branches  of  the  same  scientific 
genus.  It  has  a  much  grander  sound,  indeed,  to  talk  about 
boulders  and  glaciers,  and  yet  these  may  be  actually 
coarser  and  less  artistic  works  of  nature  than  ferns  and 
mosses.  Geology  is  diligently  engaged  in  examining  the 
epidermis  of  the  earth,  it  is  making  curious  discoveries 
among  its  dorsal  fins,  and  some  are  most  diligently  hunt- 
ing there  for  human  bones,  but  it  may  require  no  more 
intellectual  power  to  do  this,  than  to  classify  plants,  or 
dissect  an  animal.  It  deals  too,  or  assumes  to  deal,  with 
immense  times  deriving  interest  from  other  associations, 
but  having,  in  themselves,  no  more  intellectual  value, 
and  less  intellectual  interest  than  the  question  of  the 
change  and  periods  in  the  germination  of  the  seed,  or 
the  growth  of  the  foetus.  The  pride  of  Geology  in  this 
aspect,  is  as  absurd  as  it  would  be  to  regard  the  mere 
anatomy  of  the  mastodon  as  a  matter  of  more  scientific 
importance  than  the  careful  observation  of  the  insect  in 
its  wonderful  transitions  from  the  egg  to  the  grub,  and 
from  the  grub  to  the  winged  state. 

These  sciences  are  easy.     They  are  more  easily  ac- 
(juired,  and  this  gives  them  another  advantage.     In  con- 


46  INTRODUCTORY  VIEW. 

sequence  of  such  facility,  they  are,  in  the  second  place, 
more  generally  diffused  than  other  and  more  difficult  stu- 
dies ;  or,  rather,  there  is  a  more  common  diffusion  to  a 
certain  extent.  There  is  a  more  general  smattering  ;  and 
this  contributes  more  to  their  popularity  than  even  a  dee}> 
er  and  more  difficult  knowledge.  They  are  the  popular 
studies  of  the  day,  pursued  in  our  schools  and  academies 
to  the  neglect  of  the  more  sohd,  and,.in  the  end,  more 
truly  useful  branches  of  knowledge.  There  is  every 
\vhere  a  little  Physiology,  a  little  Mineralogy,  a  little 
Geology,  etc.  Of  course,  there  is  obtained,  in  general, 
but  a  smattering  in  each  ;  but  this  is  enough  to  fill  the 
common  mind  with  a  wondrous  conceit  of  science.  It  is 
a  scientific  age,  it  is  often  said ;  the  term  being  ever 
used  in  reference  to  physical  science  as  the  only  thing 
known  to  be  entitled  to  the  name.  This  gives  a  great 
advantage  to  the  common  lecturer.  Audiences  love  to 
be  talked  to  scientifically.  It  gives  them  a  very  scientific 
opinion  of  themselves.  Each  hearer  fancies  himself  a 
Galileo,  a  defender  of  knowledge  and  progress  against 
bigoted  theologians  and  persecuting  priests.  The  lec- 
turer, though  he  may  be  himself  a  thoroughly  scientific 
man,  and  one  who  truly  loves  science  in  its  higher  aspects, 
yet  adapts  himself  to  this  state  of  things.  Instead  of  the 
rigid  demonstration  he  would  employ,  if  he  really  meant 
or  hoped  to  instruct  his  audience,  he  dwells  on  the  lower 
practical  business  aspects,  or,  if  he  would  seem  to  rise 
into  something  higher,  it  is  what  ma}'  be  called  the  thau- 
maturgical  presentation  of  science  that  has  the  greatest 
charm  for  the  hearer,  and  the  greatest  temptation  for  the 
speaker.     We  mean  by  this  those  curious  facts  which 


THAUMATURGIC   LECTURING.  47 

are  mainly  calculated  to  astonish*  men,  though  having 
no  more,  and  often  even  less  connection  with  fundamen- 
tal scientific  truth  than  others  which  the  lecturer  or  the 
book-maker  neglects,  because  they  are  less  adapted  to  his 
purpose  of  immediate  excitement,  and  hence  immediate 
applause.  A  rigid  exhibition  of  the  mathematical  modes 
of  determining  the  distances  of  the  planets  would  be  dry 
and  wearisome.  To  most  audiences,  moreover,  notwith- 
standing the  boast  of  its  being  a  scientific  age,  it  would 
be  unintelligible.  But  to  make  a  grand  display  of  deci- 
mals, to  talk  of  millions  and  bilHons,  and  distances  which 
the  cannon  ball  could  not  traverse  in  a  thousand  years, 
and  rows  of  figures  reaching  round  the  earth,  this  gives 
them  a  wondrous  view  of  the  science,  and  of  the  still 
more  wondrous  human  mind  that  can  make  such  compu- 
tations, and  entertain  such  far-reaching  ideas.  Thorough 
and  patient  instruction  in  the  doctrine  of  transits  and 
parallaxes,  with  the  necessary  demonstrations  and  dia- 
grams,  would  drive  the  wearied  audience  from  their  seatsj 
but  let  them  be  told,  in  thaumaturgic  style,  of  the  won- 
drous swiftness  of  light,  and  how  a  luminous  stream  two 
hundred  thousand  miles  long  enters  the  eye  every  time 
a  man  winks,  and  there  is  immediately  a  hail-stone  cho- 
rus of  applause.  The  lecturer  has  hit  the  mark.  The 
audience  came  to  be  amused,  and  he  has  adapted  himself 
to  their  wishes,  and  to  the  degree  of  science  which  is  just 
sufficient  to  call  out  such  a  feeling.     The  man  of  true 

'It  is  astonishment,  uot  the  pliilosopliic  irondcr,  which  is  very  difFereut. 
One  belongs  to  tlie  imagination  or  mere  sense-coDception,  the  other  to  the 
idealizing  mind.  The  one  has  its  exciting  cause  iu  merely  curious  facta 
presenting  an  odd  or  strange  picture  ;  the  other  is  aroused  to  those  mys- 
teries of  nature  and  prime  causality  of  which  the  highest  science,  as  well 
as  the  humblest  facts,  is  merely  suggestive. 


48  INTRODUCTORY  VIEW. 

science,  we  say,  often  does  this.  He  is  compelled  to  do 
this  or  lose  the  reputation  of  a  popular  lecturer.  But 
the  quack,  too,  takes  advantage  of  it.  He  knows  the 
general  tendency  to  talk  about  science ;  and  how  fond 
audiences  are  of  being  addressed  scientificallj,  and  how 
prone  they  are  to  take  a  certain  stereotyped,  story-tell- 
ing language  of  science  as  rigid  science  itself.  Hence, 
under  a  babble  about  "  laAvs,"  and  "  natural  causes," 
and  "  developments,"  and  the  "  organic  and  inorganic," 
etc.,  almost  any  kind  of  foolery  passes  current.  All 
these  adopt  the  same  lingo,  whether  it  is  the  man  who 
wishes  to  recommend  some  quack  medicine,  or  the  lec- 
turer on  Biology,  or  Phrenology,  or  that  miserable  con- 
coction of  inane  delusion,  childish  reasoning,  and  wicked 
imposture,  that  goes  under  the  name  of  modern  spiritual- 
ism. The  chief  cause  of  the  success  of  this  species  of 
quackery  is  its  continual  assumption  of  a  sort  of  scientific 
gabble.  It  is  ever  talking  about  laws,  and  fluids,  and 
forces,  and  electricity,  and  magnetism,  and  there  is  just 
enough  everywhere  of  a  certain  kind  and  certain  depth 
of  science  to  give  it  its  present  pretension  and  its  present 
popularity.  There  have  been  ages  of  far  less  natural 
knowledge,  when  this  thing  would  have  been  spumed 
with  contempt.  Delusions  taking  the  form  of  religious 
superstitions,  and  claiming  connection  with  the  supernat- 
ural, might  awe  the  soul ;  but  the  days  of  witchcraft, 
and  of  the  belief  in  a  satanic  influence  had  too  much 
philosophy,  and  too  much  love  for  the  Scriptures,  to  en- 
tertain the  least  respect  for  such  a  satanic  naturalism  or 
naturalizing  spiritualism  as  this. 

There  is,  in  the  third  place,  the  continual  appeal  to  util- 
ities, which  is  another  great  element  in  the  popularity  of 


SCIENTIFIC  UTILITIES.  49 

this  kind  of  knowledge.  One  finds  it  so  much  more  of  a 
facile  task  to  persuade  meii  of  its  immediate  practical 
bearings.  This  is  so  easy  that  even  the  devoted  student 
of  natural  science,  -who  knows  that  he  pursues  it  from 
that  pure  love  of  theoretical  truth  which  is  one  of  the 
highest  traits  of  our  nature  —  the  man,  in  fact,  who  would 
give  his  days  and  nights  to  his  laboratory  whether  any 
utilitarian  inventions  came  from  it  or  not  —  even  he  is 
tempted  to  take  what  he  knows  to  be  the  lower  motive  — 
the  motive  by  which  he  is  conscious  that  he  himself  is 
least  influenced  —  and  hold  it  forth  as  the  main  thing  in 
all  his  appeals  to  the  public  for  educational  encourage- 
ment in  his  favorite  pursuit.  Hence  this  becomes  so 
prominent  a  theme  in  introductions  to  text  books,  and  in 
the  common  notices  of  scientific  progress.  Chemistry  is 
of  vast  importance  in  the  practical  arts.  It  is  a  great 
aid  in  the  manufacturing  of  paints  and  soap  ;  it  furnishes 
us  tests  whereby  to  distinguish  poisons,  and  quack  medi- 
cines ;  as  though  these  ludicrous  impositions  that  science 
may  multiply,  but  which  it  will  take  something  more  than 
science  ever  to  drive  from  the  world,  were  the  only  kind 
of  quackeries  from  which  we  have  now-a-days  any  thin  ^^ 
to  apprehend.  So  Geology  discovers  coal  mines,  and 
Astronomy  is  a  great  aid  in  navigation,  and  Navigation 
is  essential  to  commerce,  etc.,  etc.  Thus  science,  natu- 
ral science,  becomes  popular  by  having  ignored  and  kept 
out  of  view  its  own  highest  efifect  and  aim.  In  like  man- 
ner, Colleges  are  sometimes  praised,  not  for  the  minds 
they  have  produced,  not  for  having  elevated  and  spiritu- 
ahzed  the  tone  of  thinking  in  their  age  or  neighborhood, 
but  for  the  agricultural  improvements  and  mechanical 
inventions  which,  in  some  far-fetched  way,  arc  ascribed 

5 


50  INTRODLX'IORT   VIEW. 

to  their  influence.  And  then  there  is  the  everlasting 
sing-song  of  the  steam  engine,  the  daguerreotype,  and 
the  magnetic  telegraph,  as  though  the  rapid  transmis- 
sion of  a  thought  were  of  vastly  more  importance  than 
the  quality  of  the  thought  transmitted,  or  the  age  was  to 
be  lauded  for  the  improvement  of  the  one,  whatever  dete- 
rioration might  take  place  in  the  rank  and  true  value  of 
the  other. 

All  these  causes  have  given  natural  science  a  space  in 
the  public  mind  which  is  altogether  disproportioned  to  its 
real  worth ;  and  in  the  midst  of  many  acknowledged  util- 
ities we  are  suiFering  also  serious  evils  in  consequence  of 
it.  The  cause  of  true  education  is  hurt.  The  profound- 
er,  and,  in  the  end,  the  far  more  useful  studies  lie  too 
much  out  of  the  common  track  to  be  so  easily  appreci- 
ated. It  is  far  more  difficult  to  make  the  public  feel 
their  real  merits.  The  higher  intelligence  sees,  or  ought 
to  see  this,  but  in  this  class,  too,  there  are  popularity 
hunters,  and  instead  of  sustaining  by  extra  aid  those 
really  most  useful  branches  whose  utility,  however  real, 
lies  remote  from  the  fii'st  and  most  obvious  thinking, 
they  are  for  putting  all  things  on  the  same  democratic 
level,  and  making  the  test  of  value  in  any  spiritual, 
as  well  as  in  any  material,  thing,  the  immediate  public 
patronage  as  coming  from  the  immediate  public  demand. 

Outside  causes  have  contributed  to  the  same  unfair 
preponderance.  All  the  circumstances  and  wants  of  the 
age  tend  to  magnify  physical  knowledge,  or  "science" 
so  called.  Philosophy  has  completed  one  of  its  cycles, 
and  is  now  occupied  more  with  its  past  history  than  with 
any  quickening  view,  whether  now  or  old,  of  the  universal 
problem.     There  is  our  thin  rationalizing  theolog;^',  all 


UNDUE  DEFERENCE   TO   SCIENCE.  51 

reasoned  out  of  nature,  or  the  nature  of  things,  as  it  is 
called,  rather  than  the  Scriptures  ;  there  is  our  utilitarian 
ethics,  our  shallow  radical  politics.  "  Science,"  as  it  is 
called,  is  not  only  more  easy,  but  more  really  beautiful 
and  AYorthy  of  loving  study  than  some  of  these  in  the 
aspects  in  which  they  are  now  presented,  and  we  do  not 
wonder  that  men  are  rushing  after  it.  Hence,  for  our 
age,  science,  natural  science,  has  acquired  a  place  and 
a  space  that  do  not  belong  to  it ;  it  demands  a  deference 
from  all  other  departments  of  thought,  which  is  not  due 
either  to  its  dignity,  or  its  true  utility.  In  the  language 
of  prophecy,*"  it  has  become  the  horn  having  a  man's 
voice  speaking  great  things,"  and  the  world,  even  the 
religious  world,  is  wondering  after  it.  Here  we  find  the 
secret  of  that  pitiful  attitude  which  is  not  unfre<|uently 
witnessed  among  religious  men  —  that  pitiful  attitude 
that  would  beg  an  affidavit  of  the  truth  and  value  of  our 
Christianity  from  some  leading  politician,  or  of  that  poor 
faith  that  exhibits  so  wondrous  a  delight  at  a  compliment 
paid  to  the  Bible  in  a  scientific  convention,  or  reserves  its 
cautious  decision  on  the  most  important  interpretations, 
and  the  most  important  doctrines  of  the  Bible,  until  sci- 
ence—  this  hind  of  science  —  has  spoken. 

But  we  protest  against  it.  The  Scripture  is  to  be 
interpreted  from  itself,  and  by  this  Ave  mean,  not  only  its 
own  direct  utterances,  but  all  things  that  by  fair  herme- 
neutical  laAvs  stand  connected,  historically  and  psycholo- 
logieally,  with  the  conceptions  of  those  who  were  made 
the  medium  of  such  revelation,  and  with  the  language 
which  they  were  directed  or  permitted  to  employ  as  the 
direct  out-birth  or  growth  of  such  conceptions.  In  a 
late  admirable  sermon  before  one  of  our  ecclesiastical 


52  INTRODUCTORY   VIEW. 

Assemblies,  a  distinction  is  made,  in  this  respect,  ■\\'hich 
has  the  appearance  of  being  not  only  fair  for  the  Scrip- 
tures, but  philosophically  sound.  Still,  with  all  our  re- 
spect for  the  pious  and  learned  author,  we  can  not 
accede  \\holIy  to  his  position.  When  carefully  exam- 
ined, it  seems  to  us  to  surrender  the  main  ground  of  the 
Bible  authority  and  put  it  too  much  under  the  patronage 
of  science.  "  Where  the  subject  belongs  more  properly 
to  revelation,"  to  use  his  own  language,  "  we  are  to  be 
governed  by  the  laws  of  interpretation,  and  Scripture 
thus  interpreted  is  paramount.  Where  it  belongs  more 
properly  to  science  then  her  decision  is  to  be  deferred 
to,"  It  seems  fair  and  rational ;  but  the  very  illustra- 
tions immediately  brought  forward  show,  we  think,  the 
fallacy  of  the  distinction.  The  creation  of  man  as  one 
primus  homo,  the  author  would  regard  as  belonging  to  the 
first  class ;  the  question  of  creation,  or  of  the  indefinite 
creative  period,  he  concedes  to  the  second.  In  the  one, 
accordingly,  science,  whatever  she  m.ay  seem  to  discover, 
must  yield  to  exegesis  ;  in  the  other,  exegesis  yields  to, 
or  rather,  is  to  be  made  out  by  the  decisions  of  science. 
Hence,  he  says  "  the  question  whether  the  word  day 
(yom)  in  the  First  of  Genesis  signifies  a  period  of  twen- 
ty-four hours,  or  a  longer  period,  may  be  safely  left  to 
be  determined  by  the  investigations  of  Geology."  We 
can  not  admit  the  ground  of  the  distinction.  The  at- 
tempt to  make  it  only  gives  rise  to  a  still  more  difficult 
question  than  either,  —  that  is,  if  it  is  to  be  settled  by 
our  philosophical  reason  without  appealing  to  Scripture 
itself.  It  is  this.  What  questions  "  belong  more  properly 
to  revelation"  ?  Can  anything  decide  this  but  revelation 
itself  properly  interpreted  ?  Can  any  one  tell  us  what  God 


THE   BIBLE  DEFINES  ITS   OWN  PROVINCE.  63 

* 

ought  to  teach  us,  or  may  properly  teach  us,  except  God 
himself?  "Who  hath  been  his  counsellor"  in  this  re- 
spect ?  The  question  keeps  coming  up  —  What  was  the 
Bible  intended  to  teach  us  ?  Just  what  it  does  teach  us, 
is  the  only  answer  consistent  either  with  reason  or  a  pro- 
per deference  to  what  we  believe  to  be  a  divine  autho- 
rity. It  alone  can  define  its  own  province.  To  concede 
this  to  anything  outward  is  to  abandon  the  whole  ground. 
If  the  interpretation  of  tom  is  to  be  taken  from  philologi- 
cal science  (including  in  the  term  all  of  history,  of  archae- 
ology and  of  psychology  that  belongs  to  it,)  and  given  to 
Geology,  why  should  not  the  word  ad  am,  in  like  man- 
ner, be  surrendered  to  Physiology,  or  anything  else  that 
may  put  forth  its  great  pretensions  under  such  a  name  ? 
If  one  is  to  be  given  up  to  Professor  Dana,  why  should 
not  the  other,  in  like  manner,  be  yielded  to  Professor 
Agassiz,  who  maintains,  or  must  maintain,  if  he  pretends 
to  interpret  Scripture  at  all,  that  the  word  adam  must 
be  taken  generally,  or  generically,  to  denote  humanity* 
instead  of  one  single  man.  This  he  says  it  must  mean 
to  be  consistent  with  certain  facts  he  has  discovered,  or 
thinks  he  has  discovered.  Now  we  do  not  think  much 
of  his  facts ;  but  his  reasoning  would  be  as  good  as  that 
of  Professor  Dana's,  and  the  concession  to  him  equally 
rational.  If,  as  interpreters,  we  agree  with  either,  or 
disagree  with  both,  it  can  only  fairly  be  upon  the  ground 
that  such  opinion  is  really  consistent  with  the  words  and 
context  of  Scripture,  or  that  there  is  something  on  the 
face  of  the  language  which  excludes  one  interpretation 

'And  that,  too,  uot  as  otic  in  many,  grounded  on  one-ness  of  law  and 
idea  developed  from  a  once  actual  unity,  but  as  a  many  in  one  class, 
grounded  on  resemblance  and  held  together  by  arbitrary  definition. 

5* 


54  INTRODUCTORY   VIEW. 

of  science  (if  we  may  call  any  decision  of  science  an 
interpretation)  and  demands  the  acceptance  of  the  other, 
either  as  directly  made  out,  or  simply  because  there  are 
greater  hermeneutical  difficulties  in  rejecting  it.  Thus, 
for  example,  we  fairly  and  safely  believe  in  the  one  pri' 
mus  Jiomo,  and  in  the  indefinite  jjeiiods,  on  the  same  her- 
meneutical grounds.  The  word  adam  mai/  have  a  gene- 
ric sense,  as  the  word  yom  may  have  either  an  unmear 
sured  or  a  twenty-four-hour  sense.  We  believe,  how- 
ever, that  ADAM  means  a  single  man,  because  there  are 
insuperable  hermeneutical  difficulties  connected  with  the 
other  view  —  difficulties  arising  from  the  immediate  con- 
text and  from  other  parts  of  the  Bible.  So  we  believe 
that  YOM  in  Genesis  i,  was  meant  to  be  indefinite,  or  at 
least,  could  not  have  been  intended  for  a  solar  period  of 
twenty-four  hours,  because  such  view  can  not  be  exegeti- 
cally  reconciled  with  the  account  of  the  first  ante-solar 
days — because  it  creates  a  difficulty  that  must  have  been 
as  patent  to  the  first  writer  as  any  science  can  now  make 
it, —  and  because  the  other  interpretation  best  harmonizes 
Nwith  other  parts  of  the  Bible  and  the  soundest  ideas  we 
H?an  form  of  the  ancient  thinking.  On  such  grounds, — all 
■iermeneutical  in  distinction  from  geological, — we  base  our 
decision.  If  science  agrees  with  it,  so  much  the  better 
for  science.  The  interpreter  may  admit  that  some  of 
her  discoveries,  or  her  loud  talking  about  them,  have 
aroused  him  to  a  more  full  examination  of  the  matter. 
But  this  is  all  that  can  be  rationally  conceded  in  the  case. 
To  make  natural  science  itself  the  interpreter  of  Scrip- 
ture is  as  great  a  solecism  in  language  as  it  is  an  absur- 
dity in  idea.  The  highly  respected  authority  we  have 
quoted  would  certainly  not  carry  it   thus  far.     If  he 


CASE   OF   GALILEO.  55 

means  that  one  of  these  positions  is  more  important  than 
the  other,  and  that  on  the  less  vital  question  we  may 
concede  more  to  science,  we  should  not  differ  much  from 
him.  But  this  can  not  affect  the  principles  or  true  idea 
of  interpretation.  The  greater  or  less  importance  of  the 
truth,  if  it  is  truth,  which  God  has  condescended  to  teach 
us,  can  make  no  difference  as  to  the  mode  by  which  it  is 
deduced,  or  not  deduced  from  the  Scriptural  language. 
Whatever  can  not  be  made  out,  and  fairly  made  out,  from 
the  Scriptures,  is  not  taught  in  the  Scriptures  —  is  not  a 
doctrine  or  dogma  of  the  Scriptures  We  can  not  well 
conceive  of  any  proposition  more  rational  or  more  directly 
applicable  to  our  present  subject. 

It  is  further  urged  that  it  was  "  from  want  of  attention 
to  this  distinction,  there  arose  the  persecution  of  Galileo," 
and  the  controversy  in  respect  to  Joshua  x,  13.  We 
would  most  respectfully  venture  to  call  in  question  both 
these  views.  There  is  good  reason  to  believe  that  the 
Italian  shared  the  free-thinking  spirit,  at  that  time  pre- 
valent, with  other  savans  of  his  age  and  nation.  He 
was  as  fond  of  controversy  as  the  priests,  and  provoked  it 
by  a  display  of  his  science  in  that  very  way  that  would 
look  most  like  a  collision  with  the  Scriptures.  It  was 
the  scientific  narrowness  against  the  hierarchal  narrow- 
ness— with  this  difference,  that  the  priests,  mistaken  as 
they  may  have  been,  both  in  scientific  fact  and  sound 
interpretation,  were  contending  for  truths,  and  conse- 
quences as  involved  therein,  with  which  all  the  science 
of  Galileo,  and  of  all  the  savans  of  his  day,  or  of  all  suc- 
ceeding days,  bore  no  comparison,  either  of  value  in 
itself,  or  of  interest  to  man.  That  there  was  some- 
thing wrong  in  the  spirit  of  this  oft-quoted  witness,  is 


56  INTRODUCTORY   VIEW. 

made  evident  from  the  case  of  Copernicus,  who  published 
freely  the  same  views  in  Astronomy,  as  also  other  men 
of  his  day,  without  calling  out  any  persecution,  or,  in 
fact,  the  least  opposition  from  the  Church.  The  error  of 
the  enemies  of  Galileo  was  an  error,  not  of  science,  but 
of  interpretation.  It  was  that  common  fallacy  of  con- 
founding language  descriptive  of  a  fact,  as  represented  by 
a  phenomenon,  with  the  more  or  less  remote  causality  of 
that  phenomenon.  There  are  hundreds  of  passages  of 
Scripture  where  the  same  blunder  might  be  made  as 
well  as  here.  That  there  was  a  supernatural  prolonga- 
tion of  the  day  is  the  phenomenal  fact.  The  "  sun  did 
not  go  down"  at  the  usual  time,  but  continued  in  the 
heavens.  This  is  all  that  the  language  of  Scripture  is 
responsible  for.  The  appearance  might  be  identical  with 
the  causality,  or  it  might  not.  There  might  be  a  near  or 
a  remote  connection.  There  might  be  in  this  causality 
but  one  wheel,  and  that  the  actual  motion  of  the  sun  around 
the  earth ;  —  there  might  be  in  it  wheels  so  many  that 
even  the  best  modern  science  has  not  begun  to  count 
them.  As  long  as  no  difference  between  the  phenome- 
non and  the  causality  was  known,  or  even  suspected, 
it  made  no  difference  as  to  the  interpretation.  The  ac- 
tual reality  of  the  miracle  was  as  sure,  and  as  great,  on 
one  view  as  on  another ;  but  to  have  made  the  language 
responsible  for  any  causaUty  that  might  exist,  or  be  sup- 
posed or  suspected  to  exist,  would  have  been  as  much 
a  violation  of  sound  hermeneutical  principle  before  the 
scientific  discovery  as  after.  And  so  all  the  best  minds 
in  the  Roman  and  Protestant  Churches  at  once  perceived 
it.  The  case  has  been  kept  up  by  a  certain  class  of  sci- 
entific writers,  who  for  some  reasons  find  it  too  valuable 


ERROR   OF   THE   ITALIAN   PRIESTS.  57 

to  let  drop.  For  centuries  it  has  given  no  trouble  to 
any  devout  man  of  ordinary  intelligence,  and  yet  the 
stale  story  is  repeated  ad  nauseam.  We  can  hardly 
hear  a  lecture  without  it ;  as  though,  at  this  day,  men 
of  science  were  actual  martyrs,  or  professed  it  at  the 
peril  of  their  lives.  In  view  of  the  exceeding  staleness 
of  the  story,  and  the  infidel  hostility  it  often  so  unmistak- 
ably manifests,  we  might  almost  be  led  to  regard  the 
priestly  intolerance  as  certainly  a  more  respectable, 
though  equally  unjustifiable,  exhibition  of  human  nature. 
It  may  seem  that  we  are  dealing  in  paradoxes,  and  yet 
there  are  good  grounds  for  saying,  that  the  governing 
principle  of  the  Italian  priests  was  in  substance,  if  not  in 
form,  very  much  like  that  of  some  modern  men  of  science. 
The  appearances  are  different ;  the  spirit  and  end  are 
the  same.  The  reasoning,  too,  possesses  some  striking 
points  of  resemblance.  The  interpretation  of  the  Bible 
made  by  the  priests  was  to  them  a  finality ;  just  as  some 
now  hold  in  respect  to  the  language  of  science.  The 
Scriptural  language  denoted  only  the  phenomenal  fact 
according  to  the  then  knowledge,  or  rather,  want  of  know- 
ledge, of  the  causality  ;  but  those  "  literal  interpreters" 
lield  it  responsil)le  for  the  ultimate  causality  itself  as  irre- 
vocably determined  by  that  knowledge.  Now,  just  in 
the  same  manner,  and  with  the  same  bigoted  spirit,  too, 
talk  some  of  our  modern  men  of  science.  They  have 
groped  their  way  along  to  a  few  more  interior  hnks  of  this 
immense  chain  ;  they  have  got  a  few  inches  beneath  the 
surface  of  things,  and,  therefore,  they  resent  the  bare 
suspicion  that  gravities  may  yet  be  found  imperfect,  as 
vortices  have  been,  or  that  the  present  language  of  science 
may  ever  become  obsolete,  or  be  laid  aside  as  grounded 


58  INTRODUCTORY   VIEW. 

on  conceptions  found  to  be  inadequate  and  therefore  de- 
lusive. For  the  language  of  Scripture  we  need  never 
fear  this ;  since  it  is  built  on  those  first  phenomena  that  arc 
the  same  for  all  ages,  for  all  ejes,  and  therefore  can 
never  vary  ^Yhilst  human  eyes  and  minds  remain  the 
same.* 


"We  do  not^attach  much  importance  to  the  particular  Hebrew  verb  used 
Joshua  X,  13.  It  may  be  said,  however,  that  the  word  i^ioT  or  £311, 
has  nothing  to  do  with  the  idea  of  motion.  It  implies  neither  motion  nor 
stoppage,  but  simply  a  remaining  uf  things  as  they  are,  or  were,  at  any 
one  moment  of  time.  Such  is  the  radical  idea  of  the  root  in  the  Arabic, 
although  in  the  Bible  the  most  common  thought  connected  with  the  word 
is  that  of  silence,  (juietness,  or  repose.  This  radical  idea  appears  most  ex- 
pressively, as  well  as  beautifully,  in  an  Arabic  formula  which  has  every 
appearancelof  great  antiquity.  They  say ,  (using  this  verb,)  "  the  sun  stands 
still  in  the  summit  of  heaven."  Or,  as  it  is  better  given  in  the  Latin,  s^ib- 
ititit  sol  in  culminc  cteli.  It  is  their  phrase  for  what  we  would  call  high 
noon,  when  the  sun  seems  to  be  almost  motionless,  and  the  hours  mova 
exceedingly  slow.  The  Greeks  have  the  same  et3-mological  image  in  their 
phrase  dra&sphv  'fjfJ^ap,  which  is  also  applied  to  the  noon,  or  the  time 
when  the  sun  seems  to  stand  still.  The  reader  will  find  a  very  clear  ex- 
planation of  this  language  as  given  by  the  scholiast  Hcrmias  on  the  PhjB- 
drus,  p.  3-li?,  and  quoted  by  lluhnkeuius  in  his  Notes  to  the  Lexicon  of 
Timaeus.  The  contrast  is  beautifully  presented  between  the  seemingly 
motionless  position  of  the  sun  at  noon,  and  the  comparative  haste  with 
which  he  rises  and  sets:  at  which  latter  time,  especiallj',  the  rapid  length- 
ening of  the  shadows  furnishes  the  deepest  contrast  to  their  apparent  me- 
rijian  immovability.  We  dwell  on  this  to  show  how  purely  phenomenal 
the  word  is,  and  how  little  it  has  to  do  with  any  matter  of  fact,  or  scientific, 
belief  about  the  cause  of  the  appearance,  whether  as  existing  in  the  earth, 
or  sun,  or  both.  The  latter  would  be  the  answer  of  the  highest  philosophy  j 
for  all  motion,  or  change  in  the  relations  of  two  bodies,  is  ever  relative,  aj 
long  as  we  bring  in  no  third  thing  in  respect  to  wliich  one  of  them  may 
seem  to  be  immovable.  In  this  case  the  language  is  not  only  phenomenal, 
but,  in  some  sense,  sid/jcctire.  It  is  not  only  the  appearance  as  presented 
to  the  sense  alone,  but  that  sensation,  or  rather  perception,  as  nll'ected  by 
other  thoughts  and  other  associations  of  the  mind.  So  might  we  treat  the 
appearance  recorded  in  Joshua,  as  a  subjective  slow  moving  of  time,  if  all 
the  other  aspects  of  the  account  did  not  irresistibly  force  to  the  belief  of 
an  outward  miracle  in  nature  and  natural  causality. 


THE  OUTLINE  CREATIVE  IDEAS.         59 

The  Bible  must  be  interpreted  by  itself  and  of  itself. 
We  present  it  as  the  pervading  thought  of  this  introduc- 
tory excursus  on  the  sjDirit  and  position  of  science.  It 
will  be  the  leading  idea  never  lost  sight  of  in  all  the  re- 
marks that  follow.  The  creative  account  must  be  in- 
terpreted from  Scripture  alone ;  and,  when  so  interpre- 
ted, it  will  yield  us  a  satisfactory  resting  place  in  certain 
great  out-line  ideas  independent  of  science,  but  which 
she  may  fill  up,  if  she  will  do  it  modestly  and  reverently, 
as  she  pleases; — six  great  divine  works,  having  re- 
spect not  to  the  universe,  or  universal  cosmos,  but  to  our 
earth  —  each  of  these  commencing  with  the  going  forth 
of  a  supernatural  Word,  and  the  energising  of  a  super- 
natural Spirit, —  and  all  followed  by  an  ineffable  divine 
repose  which  still  continues.     Or,  to  state  it  another  way 

—  SIX  great  divine  works  in  six  great  divine  days, 
or  periods  —  these  periods  incommensurable,  that  is,  out- 
side of  any  present  cosmical  measurements  that  might 
be  used  to  determine  either  their  brevity  or  their  length 

—  called  days,  not  metaphorically,  but  because  they  are 
true  days  in  their  cyclical  law  —  called  also,  and  by  the 
same  authority,  toledoths,  or  generations,  because 
they  were  real  hirtlis  and  growths  through  which  God 
conducted  this  world  from  its  chaotic  infancy  up  to  the 
crowning  work  in  the  creation  of  humanity,  and  the  cov- 
enant made  with  the  primus  homo  or  head  of  the  race. 

We  must  have  a  fair  interpretation  that  maj'-  stand, 
let  Geology  go  where  she  will ;  and  no  one  knows  where 
that  may  be.  She  is  now  getting  into  no  little  confusion 
and  speaks  uncertainly.  The  time  may  possibly  come, 
when  she  may  give  up  her  pleiocene,  and  eocene,  her 
millions  and  billions  of  ages.     She  may  discover  or  get 


60  INTRODUCTORY  VIEW. 

some  hint  that  there  have  been  quicker  powers  in  nature 
than  had  been  dreamed  of, —  that  there  are  reserve  laws 
that  operated  of  old,  and  that  may  operate  again  when  the 
new  period  of  travail  comes  after  the  long  and  silent  ges- 
tation— laws  and  forces  that  may  bring  out,  in  very  short 
times,  series  and  generations  that  under  other  influen- 
ces would  seem  to  require  an  immensely  longer  duration. 
In  such  case,  those  in  the  Church  who  have  had  the  most 
to  say  of  "  harmonies"  might  be  disposed,  perhaps,  to 
retreat  with  her ;  and  yet  fair  interpretation  would  remain 
unafiected  amid  all  the  changes  of  the  science,  or  of  its 
rehgious  or  scientific  followers.     Such  fair  interpretion 
would  even  then,  as  now,  content  itself  by  saying, —  we 
have  no  right  to  set  definite  bounds  either  of  hours  or 
ages  to  what  God  has  left  indefinite  —  we  have  no  right 
to  measure  what  is  left  incommensurable  by  any  cosmical 
standards  which  were  themselves  uncreated,  and  could 
not,  therefore,  have  been  measurers  of  the  creative  works. 
Yes,  the  Bible  must  interpret  itself.     We  must  believe 
— if  we  believe  at  all  —  that  it  was  meant  to  teach  just 
what  it  does  teach  us.     Thus,  too,  our  highest  and  deepest 
ground  of  faith  must  be  in  the  devoted  study  of  the  Book 
itself.    Here  must  be  our  anchor.    All  evidences  derived 
from  science,  let  her  be  ever  so  favorably  disposed,  will 
fail  us,  and  will  fail  the  age,  unless  we  hear  that  voice  of 
authority  speaking  in  the  Scripture  and  to  which  the  old 
divines   so  frequently  refer.     We  have  said  that   the 
thought  was  comparatively  rare  in  modern  times.     It  is, 
therefore,  with  no  ordinary  pleasure  that  we  cite  the  tes- 
timony of  one  of  our  profoundest  thinkers.     The  same 
idea  is  presented  in  a  late  Address  of  M.  Guizoi,  at  a 
late  meeting  of  the  Protestant  Bible  Society  of  France. 


TESTIMONY   OF   GUIZOT.  61 

In  distinction  from  all  external  testimonies,  whether  his- 
torical, philosophical,  or  scientific,  he  insists  upon  this 
^'  Divine  Presence  in  the  Scriptures,"  as  the  deep,  soul- 
felt  ground  of  their  authority.     "  The  examination  of 
the  Scriptures,"  says  this  pious  statesman,  "  reveals  dif- 
ficulties, but  these  are  only  occasioned  by  human  igno- 
rance and  human  infirmity.     Above  them  all  appears 
the  Divine  character  of  the  Sacred  Books,  the  Divine 
Breath  ^Yhich  fills  and  animates  them.     The  movement 
may  be  sometimes  obscure,  but  God  is  ever  there.     In 
every  part  is  he  to  be  seen,  heard,  felt.    Through  all  diffi- 
culties, and  through  all  obscurities,  there  is  the  constant 
view  of  God's  presence,  the  constant  sound  of  his  voice." 
He  makes  no  distinction  between  the  New  Testament 
and  the  Old.     The  Divine  Presence  is  everywhere — no 
less  majestic  in  some  of  the  oldest  than  in  the  later  por- 
tions of  the  same  inseparable  revelation.     This  noble  tes- 
timony is  no  mere  rationalizing,  either  after  the  manner 
of  Locke  or  that  of  Cousin.     Each  would  be  equally 
external  here.     The  idea  of  M.   Guizot  is  the  same 
with  that  of  Owen  and  Hallyburton,  and  presented  in 
nearly  the  same   style    of  language.     In  his   political 
retirement  he  has  been  a  devout  student  of  the  Scrip- 
tures.    Here  is  the  ground  of  his  faith.     The  same  faith 
can  only  become  general  when  the  age  gets  tired  of  talk- 
ing about  "  nature  as  a  divine  revelation,"  and  in  its  ex- 
haustion and  its  weariness  sits  down  to  the  Bible  to  learn 
Iww  little  toe  knoiv — how  little  all  things  else  can  teach 
us  of  the  human  origin,  the  human  destiny,  the  true  hu- 
man history  —  in  short,  those  higher  truths  of  nature  as 
well  as  of  morals,  aside  from  which   philosophy  is  as 
sounding  brass,  and  science  but  a  tinkling  cymbal. 

6 


62  SCRIPTURAL  INTERPRETATION.. 


CHAPTER  IL 


Scriptural  Interpretation  in  Connection  with  Science — Nine 
General  Principles — Application  to  the  Creative  Record — 
The  Difficulty  of  a  Solar  Day  without  a  Sun  as  obvious 
to  Moses  as  to  Mr.  Lord — If  there  is  any.  such  Difficulty 
it  is  Patent  on  the  Face  of  the  Record — It  has  not  come 
from  Science,  but  from  False  Interpretation — Interpreta' 
tion,  therefore,  and  not  Science,  must  Remove  it — crea- 
tion an  OKDER  OF  APPEARANCES — Each  Appearance  a 
Morning — Succession,  not  Duration,  the  Radical  Idea. 

The  argument  for  the  creative  days  has  been  already  so 
fully  treated  that  we  would  not  weary  our  readers  with 
even  the  appearance  of  repetition  in  respect  to  any  mat- 
ters of  detail,  or  particular  interpretation.  There  is, 
however,  a  synoptical  view  of  the  whole  ground,  that  pre- 
sents itself  under  somewhat  new  aspects,  and  which  we 
would  desire  to  give  in  a  more  condensed,  and  as  we 
think,  more  convincing  form. 

The  interpretation  of  the  Bible  must,  of  course,  require 
more  care  than  that  of  any  other  book.  The  principles 
of  such  interpretation  must  be  high  and  broad  just  in 
proportion  as  we  regard  the  author  of  the  Scripture  as 
divine.  Yet  still  they  lie  within  the  fair  range  of  the 
human  intelligence ;  they  must  be  the  rules  of  reason 
and  common  sense  properly  elevated  by  a  feeling  of  the 
sacred  work  in  whicli  the  mind  is  engaged.     We  will 


RULES    OF   INTERPRETATION.  68 

■proceed  to  state  a  few  of  those  we  cannot  help  deeming 
the  most  important. 

1st.  The  record  should  be  interpreted  from  itself.  In 
doing  this,  single  words  should  be  defined  by  their  use 
in  other  parts  of  the  Bible,  and  especially  as  they  lie  in 
nearest  connection  with  the  passage  explained. 

2d.  The  difficulties  acknowledged  should  be  such  as 
exist  in  the  record  itself —  on  the  face  of  it.  They  must 
have  been  difficulties  obvious  to  the  writer  and  the  men 
of  his  day  for  whom  he  wrote,  and,  therefore,  inherent  in 
the  very  nature  of  the  descriptive  narration.  It  follows 
from  this,  of  course,  that  the  solutions  must  be  such  as 
are  furnished  by  the  record  ;  in  other  words,  they  must 
be  such  as  might  have  been  accepted  by  the  writer  and 
the  men  of  his  day. 

3d.  Whether  the  language  is  extraordinary  or  not, 
must  be  determined  from  the  extraordinary  nature  of  the 
facts  recorded,  and  the  known  difficulty  of  setting  them 
forth  in  any  other  way.  This  will  not  change  the  radi- 
cal conception*  of  a  term ;  otherwise  the  language  be- 
comes entirely  arbitrary  and  cabalistical ;  but  it  deter- 
mines whether  it  is  to  be  taken  in  a  limited  or  an  enlarged 
sense,  and  whether  we  have  any  right,  a  priori,  to  expect 
any  such  expansion  of  the  ^YOrd  and  the  thought. 

4th.  If  the  idea  of  the  ineffable  and  the  anomalous  is 
forced  upon  us  in  some  parts,  we  may  lawfully  carry  it 

'As  tliis  term  is  frequently  used  by  us,  and  is  greatly  liable  to  be  mis- 
understood, we  will  define  it,  once  for  all,  as  that  image  which  is  most  pro- 
minent, and  most  permanent,  in  the  pictorial  representation  the  mind  is 
(compelled  to  make  of  the  idea,  or  thing  thought.  Thus,  in  the  word  and 
idea  day,  period,  *£^toOoj,  revolution,  cyclity,  ever  remain,  though  other 
features,  such  as  any  particular  duration,  or  modes  of  marking  it,  may  con- 
leeptually  vary  to  any  extent. 


64  EULES    OF   INTERPRETATION. 

into  others  in  close  connection  ^vitli  it.  For  example  — 
if,  in  the  creative  account,  we  are  compelled  to  admit 
that  the  Word,  the  Spirit,  the  "Work,  the  Rest,  are  extraor- 
dinary or  ineflfahle  ideas,  not  to  be  measured  by  ordinary 
conceptions,  -we  carry  out  the  spirit  of  the  interpretation 
when  we  apply  the  same  rule  of  conceiving  to  the  times. 
If  God's  u'ork  is  not  like  our  work,  if  his  rest  is  not  like 
our  rest,  then  his  dai/  of  working  and  his  day  of  resting 
are  not  like  our  day.  They  must  be  in  harmony  with 
the  other  ideas,  unless  instantancousness  or  suddenness 
is  meant  to  be  a  chief  feature  of  the  account ;  of  which 
there  is  no  evidence,  or  rather  there  is  the  evidence  of 
the  contrary,  on  the  face  of  the  Mosaic  narrative.  We 
can  not  imagine  anything  more  fair  or  rational  than  this. 

6th.  The  individual  or  peculiar  conception  of  the  writer 
is  not  to  be  disregarded.  Otherwise  we  make  him  a 
mere  outward  amanuensis ;  we  have  nothing  to  fix  the 
idea  or  ultimate  fact  which  his  conception  represents ; 
we  have  nothing  to  determine  it  to  one  thing  more  than 
another  ;  and  thus,  under  pretence  of  magnifying  revela- 
tion, v/e  take  from  it  all  possibility  of  any  definite  inter- 
pretation that  shall  be  catholic  for  all  sane  minds, 

6th.  The  conception  of  the  writer  once  ascertained  is 
authority  for  the  fact  he  would  narrate,  or  the  thincf  he 
would  describe,  as  separate  from  all  other  facts  or  things ; 
but  it  is  not  authority  for  the  science  of  that  fact  or  thing. 
Thus  the  language  of  Moses,  in  the  account  of  the  second 
day,  shows  that  there  lay  in  his  mind  the  phenomena  of 
the  sky  or  atmosphere.  He  meant  to  narrate  the  mak- 
ing of  this  in  the  order  of  the  terrestrial  creation.  The 
fact  binds  us,  however  erroneous  may  have  been  the  at- 
tending conception.     When  we  extend  the  language  here 


SCIENTIFIC   INTERPRETATION.  65 

to  the  nebular  rings  of  science  (whether  real  or  imagin- 
ary) we  travel  out  of  the  fact,  as  well  as  the  conception. 
The  consequence  is  that  instead  of  a  catholic  interpreta- 
tion, we  have  one  that  conies  and  goes  with  the  varying 
mind,  and  varying  imagination,  and  varying  science  of 
every  age  and  of  every  special  interpreter.  Hence  fol- 
lows rule 

7th.  All  science  must  be  excluded,  as  well  as  all  de- 
ductions from  any  science,  which  we  are  sure  was  un- 
known to  the  writer.  Otherwise  God  did  not  make  use 
of  the  mind  of  the  writer,  or  the  linguistic  conceptions  of 
the  writer,  but  only  his  articulating  organs  or  letter-trac- 
ing hand.  Hence  it  follows,  that  the  Bible  contains  no 
discoveries  in  science,  properly  so  called,  nor  any  revela- 
tion of  facts  which  science  is  able  to  discover,  but  only 
of  those  great  physical  truths  of  origin  which,  in  their 
very  nature.  He  beyond  the  field  of  all  science — in  them- 
selves unknown  alike  to  all —  and  which  may  be  as  easily 
announced  to  the  common  as  to  the  most  scientific  mind.* 
Hence, 

*  We  have  elsewhere  remarked  upon  this  as  drawing  a  distinctive  line 
lietween  the  Bible  and  everything  else  agsuming  to  be  a  revelation.  It 
wholly  avoids  committing  itself  to  any  scientific  or  philosophical  specala- 
tion,  or  to  the  language  peculiar  to  such  speculation.  This  is  not  from  cau- 
tion, but  because  the  Bible  thoughts  are,  iu  themselves,  essentially  above 
any  theories  or  discoveries  in  science.  In  the  sacred  books  of  the  eastern 
religions,  the  tendency  to  philosophise  is  plainly  discernible.  Tliey  con- 
tain pantheistic  ideas  which  are  evidently  ff/er  thoughts  of  philosophising 
minds,  such  as  the  Egyptian  priests  or  Indian  Brahmins,  striving  to  escape 
from  common  notions,  and  seeking  to  employ  a  vehicle  somewhat  different 
'Vom  the  common  speech.  Extravagant  and  mytliical  as  they  are,  they 
betray  their  human  origin  by  their  very  attempts  to  got  above  humanity. 
Although  there  is  no  pantlieism  in  the  Koran,  yet  no  one  can  study  it  care- 
*nlly  without  seeing  that  IMohammed,  ever  and  anon,  has  some  crude  sci- 
entific notion  that  warps  his  language.  He  talks  of  tlie  earth,  not  pheno- 
'aenally,as  the  Bible  does,  bat  in  such  a  way  as  toeive  some  of  his  extrav- 

6* 


Q6  WE   CAN   NOT   MEND   MOSES   BY   SCIENCE. 

8th.  That  interpretation  labors  the  most,  "which,  iu 
clearing  up  supposed  difficulties  in  language,  or  narra- 
tion, has  to  seek  the  most  aid  from  the  inferences  of  a 
science  now  known,  but  then  unknown.  Thus,  Mr.  Lord's 
theory  is  false,  because  he  can  not  make  a  solar  day  of 
the  first  period,  or  give  any  consistent  work  to  the  fourth 
period,  without  bringing  in  rotating  hemispheres,  and 
varying  inclinations  of  ecliptic  axes,  that,  whether  true 
or  false  scientifically,  were  utterly  unknown  to  Moses 
either  as  facts  or  conceptions,  and  could,  therefore,  have 
been  of  no  aid  to  him  in  solving  a  difficulty  which,  if  it 
exists  at  all,  lies  now,  and  must  have  lain  then,  upon  the 
face  of  the  account. 

ogant  Arabian  traditions  respecting  the  earth's  form  and  place  tlie  appear- 
ance of  cherished  scientific  hypothesis  which  he  would  put  forth  for  its  own 
sake.  Sometimes,  too,  he  gets  hold  of  a  psj'chological  conceit,  the  display 
of  which  evidently  forms  a  prominent  design  in  the  passage  where  it  a;j- 
pears.  Thus,  the  dependence  of  the  time-conception  on  the  conscious  suc- 
cession of  thought  had  not  escaped  the  musings  of  these  sons  of  the  desert. 
It  is  alluded  to  in  Oriental  tale.«,  snch  as  the  striking  story  of  the  Magical 
Water  to  which  Addison  alludes  in  the  Spectator.  Now  Mohammed  evi- 
dently has  this  in  view  in  his  a;count  of  the  Miraculous  Sleepers  in  Sura 
XVIIIth  of  the  Koran,  entitled  The  Cave.  On  waking  from  their  long 
'Unconscious  state,  they  were  asked  for  their  estimate  of  the  time  that  had 
elapsed  ;  and  Mohammed  says  that  it  was  for  the  very  purpose  of  testing 
them  in  this  respect.  It  is  evident  that  the  philosophical  interest,  and  tl.o 
philosophical  notion  crude  as  it  is  in  his  mind,  are  predominant.  IIow 
very  different  our  own  Holy  Scripture.  Time  is  nothing  to  the  un  thinking 
it  is  all-present,  without  length  or  shortness,  to  the  All-2'hinking.  And  this 
idea  is  given  us  in  the  Bible,  but  not  as  a  psychological  truth  or  as  having 
a  philosophicnl  value.  All  is  subservient  to  a  higher  purpose,  the  ineflable 
glory  of  God.  "  A  thousand  years  in  thy  sight  are  but  as  yesterday,  when 
it  is  past,  and  as  a  watch  in  the  night."  Anything  which  should  hava 
looked  like  the  set  language  of  any  philosoj)hy,  with  any  design,  however 
faintly  appearing,  of  making  this  philosophic  interest  predominant,  would 
have  impaired  the  thought,  or  rather  the  emotion  of  the  thought,  which  is 
•the  vital  thing;  and  so  there  is  a  resort  to  the  impassioned  poetical  speech 
of  the  higher  spiritual  region. 


CREATION  AN  ORDER  OR  SUCCESSION.      67 

9th.  Therefore  —  The  onlj  office  of  science  in  respect 
to  Biblical  interpretation  is  to  stimulate  enquiry,  and 
then  chiefly  as  to  the  fact  whether  some  plain  statement 
of  the  record  may  not  have  been  disguised  or  obscured 
by  having  had  forced  upon  it  changed  conceptions  aris- 
ing from  modern  scientific  discoveries.  When  it  has  thus 
aroused  the  mind  to  examine  whether  certain  modern 
prejudices  in  regard  to  Bible  language  may  not  be  false, 
it  should  never  be  allowed  to  force  upon  the  Scriptures 
any  mere  possible  interpretation  to  make  the  sense  ac- 
cord with  any  real  or  supposed  state  of  scientific  facts. 


Let  these  rules  be  kept  strictly  in  mind  and  we  have 
a  guide  to  a  trust-worthy  interpretation  of  the  First  of 
(xenesis,  carrying  us  safely  between  the  ever-shifting  de- 
mands of  science,  and  the  insane  bigotry  that  would  shut 
us  up  to  one  of  the  most  narrow  of  modern  conceptions. 
We  get,  as  one  might  a  priori  expect,  the  extraordinary, 
the  boundless,  the  sublime,  without  committing  ourselves 
to  nebulae,  or  the  uncertainties  of  ever-lenarthenino;  tele- 
scopes,  on  the  one  hand,  or  the  narrowest  anthropomor- 
phism on  the  other. 

The  whole  of  the  creative  narrative  in  Genesis  is  sub- 
limely pictorial ;  since  in  this  way  alone  could  it  be  sub- 
limely truthful.  Any  other  method  of  bringing  it  down 
to  us  Avould  have  involved  more  error  and  less  reality. 
But  as  we  have  it,  nothing  could  be  more  splendid  for 
the  imagination,  and,  at  the  same  time,  more  satisfying 
to  that  philosophic  intellect  which  regards  all  nature  as 
but  appearances  of  things  unseen,  and  all  science  as  but 
an  arranging  and  classifying'  aid  in  the  study  of  such 
appearances — following,   indeed,   its   conclusions   to   a 


bo  THE  FIRST  MORNING. 

great  distance,  yet  never  really  penetrating  into  that  in- 
visible  world  which  lies  back  of  them  all. 

The  Mosaic  Creation  was  an  order  and  succession  of 
appearances. 

"  In  the  beginning  God  made  the  Heavens  and  the 
Earth."  What  appearances  are  here  intended  ?  What 
beginning  ?  What  Heavens  ?  What  Earth  ?  The  language 
following  explains  this  brief  language  of  the  Title  or  Cap- 
tion. The  writer,  in  what  is  said  afterwards,  commences 
with  the  Earth,  although  in  the  title  itself  it  has  the  se- 
cond place.  The  reason  of  this  is  plain.  In  the  caption, 
where  chronological  order  is  unnecessary,  or  postponed 
to  the  order  of  ideas,  the  most  striking  object  in  the  pic- 
ture, or  conception,  is  put  first.  On  the  other  hand,  in 
the  narration  itself,  the  time  series  rules.  The  creation 
of  the  earth  is  first  sot  forth  because  it  actually  is  first 
in  time,  —  the  heaven  is  built  upon  it,  that  is,  the  sky  or 
atmospherical  heavens,  which  is  all  that  Moses  had  in 
mind,  or  was  inspired  to  have  in  mind.  This  creation  of 
the  earth  consists  primarily  in  the  change  wrought  upon 
that  dark  state  where  creation,  the  Mosaic  creation,  be- 
gins. It  is  brought  forth  into  light  and  visibility.  It  is 
made  to  appear.  The  Spirit  goes  forth  brooding  on  the 
waters,  and  this  was  the  beginning  recorded  by  Moses. 
There  is  a  much  more  ancient  beginning  mentioned, 
John  i,  1.  That  was  from  eternity.  There  may  have 
been,  in  time,  many  other  inceptive  epochs  in  the  great 
spiritual  and  material  works  of  God.  But  this  begin- 
ning, of  which  Moses  informs  us,  was  in.  the  evening. 
With  the  Spirit  comes  the  Word,  and,  straitway,  there 
is  an  appearance.  Light  appears,  and  this  was  the 
morning.    Those  mighty  beings  called  "  Morning  Stars," 


EACH   APPEARANCE   A   MORNING.  69 

the  jet  unfallen  Luciferi,  "  sing  aloud,  and  the  sons  of 
God  shout  for  joy."  This  was  the  morning.  How  can 
we  think  of  a  common  morning  here,  or  keep  out  those 
ideas  of  the  extraordinary,  of  the  ineffable,  which,  if  once 
admitted,  must  give  character  to  the  whole  subsequent 
account.  God  called  this  morning  day.  It  is  his  own 
definition  of  the  term.  He  does  not  define  it  by  subse- 
quent ideas,  but  by  phenomena  already  mentioned.  In 
thus  naming  there  is  no  reference  to  duration,  or  to  any 
measurement  of  times,  but  to  division  and  contrast.  It 
was  the  morning  as  compared  with  the  old  night  of  chaos, 
the  new  appearayice  as  compared  with  the  old  invisibility. 
It  could  not  have  been  a  solar  day ;  for  as  yet  no  sun, 
no moonh^di  appeared m  the  heavens, although  there  was, 
somehow,  a  glorious  light  upon  this  infant  world. 
AVhether  existing  or  not,  these  sky  lamps  were  3"et  among 
the  things  unseen.  Even  the  heavens,  in  which  they 
were  to  have  their  optical  manifestation,  had  not  yet  ap- 
peared. There  was  no  sky,  no  rakia,  or  firmament, 
above.  This  certainly  is  safe  interpretation.  We  cling 
close  to  Moses  here.  There  was  no  visible  sun  to  mea- 
sure time,  but  still  there  was  a  day,  a  period  character- 
ized by  most  remarkable  powers  and  manifestations. 
There  was  the  Brooding  Spirit,  the  Commanding  Word  ; 
there  was  the  terrific  darkness  on  the  waters,  and  the 
creative  light  that  shone,  not /row  a  sun,  but  out  of  the 
darkness  Qx  cTxoVous)  as  Paul  says,  in  his  significant  com- 
parison, 2  Cor.  iv,  6  ;  and  thus  "  there  was  an  evening, 
and  there  was  a  morning,  one  day."  Who  shall  think 
of  twenty-four  hours  here  ?  We  repeat  it — because  the 
more  we  meditate  upon  this  strange  language,  the  more 


70  SUN   AND   MOON   HAD   NOT   YET   APPEAKED. 

strange  it  seems  that  any  one  should  have  ever  had  such 
a  narrow  conception  whether  in  ancient  or  modern  times. 
Again  goes  forth  the  Word.  The  Firmament  appears 
—  the  expanse  above  with  its  sailing  waters  —  the  old 
glorious,  and  yet  still  glorious  sky.  "  And  God  called 
it  Heavens."  He  has  interpreted  the  language  for  him- 
self. It  is  the  same  heavens  mentioned  in  the  first  brief 
titular  verse.  Here  we  have  a  more  particular  account  of 
its  creation,  or  building,  (x-riVig)  in  the  work  of  the  second 
day.  This  was  the  making  of  the  heavens.  Were  they 
optical  in  some  way  ?  Were  they  lit  up  by  an  aurora, 
such  as  we  have  seen  revealing  the  vaulted  sky  in  a 
moonless  night  ?  We  know  not.  Imagination  may  be 
soberly  indulged,  but  all  scientific  hypotheses,  as  such, 
are  worthless  and  contemptible.  Was  it  so  named  in 
reference  to  the  after  appearance,  when  it  reflected  the 
light  of  the  celestial  lamps  ?  Such  a  view  may  be  indulg- 
ed ;  but  it  is  all  conjecture.  We  cling  close  to  Moses 
when  we  say  there  was  a  sky,  a  heavens,  although  no 
sun,  no  moon,  no  stars  had  as  yet  appeared  therein. 
These  were  as  yet  invisible,  and,  in  this  sense,  as  non- 
existent to  our  earth  as  the  satellites  of  Jupiter  before 
the  days  of  Galileo,  or  many  of  the  nebular  clouds  before 
the  making  of  Lord  Rosse's  telescope.  But  there  was 
now  a  sky  ;  —  and  here  comes  the  same  language,  may 
we  not  say  the  same  self-interpreting  language,  telling 
us,  in  unmistakable  terms,  what  these  strange  mornings 
and  evenings  really  are.  Let  the  reader  mark  the  con- 
stant order.  There  is  a  division,  and  then  an  appear- 
ance. As  first  the  waters  appeared  when  the  light 
shone  on  them,  or  out  of  them,  so  now  a  sky  appears, 
although  no  sun  nor  moon  as  yet  appear  in  it.     What 


SUCCESSION   OP  MORNINGS.  71 

prevented  their  being  seen  we  know  not.  We  have  only 
to  interpret,  and  to  bring  our  imaginations  into  harmony 
with  such  interpretation ;  but  Moses  says  that  they  were 
not  appointed  to  their  office,  until  the  fourth  day.  Until 
this  time  —  to  use  the  paraphrase  of  the  Son  of  Sirac  — 
"  they  did  not  stand  in  their  watches,  giving  light  in  the 
high  places  of  the  Lord."  But  here  is  a  new  division 
and  a  new  appearance,  and  immediately  is  it  said,  there 
is  a  new  morning,  and  a  second  day.  What  can  be 
plainer,  if  a  man  will  but  throw  away  science,  all  narrow 
modern  conceptions,  and  bring  himself  into  the  power 
and  spirit  of  the  language  ?  Each  appearance  is  a  mo7'n- 
ing,  so  named  from  the  fact  of  appearance,  without  any 
reference  to  duration  or  any  present  divisions  of  time. 
The  language  interprets  itself.  Each  appearance  is  a 
morning.  The  appearance  of  the  light  was  the  first 
morning.  The  appearance  of  the  sky  was  the  second 
morning.  The  appearance  of  the  earth  rising  out  of  the 
waters  was  the  third  morning.  The  appearance  of  the 
heavenly  bodies,  sun,  moon  and  stars,  in  the  sky  or  firm- 
ament where  they  had  not  appeared  before,  —  this  was 
the  fourth  most  glorious  morning.  Each  has  its  corre- 
sponding divisions  so  arranged  in  consecutive  and  ascend- 
ing order  as  to  make  the  conclusion  irresistible,  to  a  sober 
thinking  man,  that  such  first  naming  of  .the  day,  night, 
and  morning  is  the  clue,  and  was  meant  to  be  the  clue, 
to  all  the  rest.  Divisions — contrasts  —  and  contrasted 
successions,  are  the  prominent  ideas.  Duration  comes  in 
not  at  all,  unless  we  force  it  upon  Moses.  They  were  un- 
measured days.  AVe  say  this  on  the  soberest  principle, 
because  there  was  no  sun  to  measure  them,  and  because 
we  are  expressly  told  when  solar-measured  days  began, 


72  OBJECTION   CONSIDERED. 

as  if  to  mark  the  difference  in  a  waj  that  could  not  be 
mistaken.  These  divisions,  moreover,  vrcre  superna- 
tural. God  made  them,  as  Augustine  sajs,  to  distin- 
guish them  from  the  natural  or  the  sun-made  intervals  of 
time  which  now  exist. 

The  difficulty  of  a  solar  day  without  a  sun  must  have 
been  as  obvious  to  Moses  (had  such  been  his  view) 
as  to  us.  It  is  not  at  all  a  difficulty  made  by  science. 
The  fact,  therefore,  that  the  writer  does  not  attempt  to 
solve  it,  or  explain  it,  not  even  recognizing  it,  shows  that 
he  could  not  have  regarded  them  as  solar  or  common 
days.  He  had  good  reason  to  think  that  his  readers 
would  be  so  impressed  with  the  feeling  of  the  marvellous, 
the  extraordinary,  pervading  the  whole  style  and  struc- 
ture of  the  narration,  that  they  would  not  need  an  ex- 
planation. 

And  here  we  may  refer  to  our  third  rule,  which  those 
who  can  only  see  real  or  apparent  salient  points,  might 
be  ready  to  cite  against  us.  '  The  language  must  be 
defined  by  that  Avhich  lies  nearest  to  it,  unless  there  is 
something  in  the  face  of  the  account  that  positively  for- 
bids.' We  applied  it  to  the  word  heavens,  when  we  said 
it  must  have  the  same  meaning  in  the  third  verse  as  in 
the  first.  The  objection  has  been  taken  —  why  should 
not  the  word  day  have  .the  same  meaning  in  the  second 
verse,  as  when  used  below  of  undoubted  solar  days  ?  We 
might  reply,  in  the  first  place,  that  it  has  the  same 
meaning  if,  when  we  speak  of  a  word's  meaning,  we 
look  only  to  the  essential  idea.  The  nine-hour  day  of 
Jupiter,  the  twenty-four  hour  day  of  the  earth,  the  ^six 
months'  day  of  the  pole,  the  millenial  day  of  some  of  the 
immense  astronomical  cycles,  or,  in  fact,  any  temporal 


THE   ATMOSPHERICAL    HEAVEN.  73 

period  of  a  cyclical  self-measuring  character — all  these 
are  alike  days  in  the  essential  idea,  and  the  application 
of  the  term  to  one  of  them  is  no  more  metaphorical  or 
secondary  than  it  is  to  another.  But  if  such  answer  is 
not  satisfactory,  we  have  one  that  is  conclusive ;  and 
that  is,  that  aside  from  any  difficulties  of  science,  the 
very  record  on  the  fair  face  of  it  forbids  the  inference 
from  which  the  objection  is  supposed  to  derive  its  force. 
In  the  use  of  the  word  heaven  no  intimation  is  given  of 
a  diHerent  meaning,  or  we  may  rather  say,  a  more  or 
less  extended  application  of  the  same  idea.*  The  heaven 
made  and  mentioned  in  the  third  verse  is  the  heaven 
mentioned  in  the  second — the  same  in  phenomenal  con- 
ception, the  same,  we  think,  in  supposed  extent.  But  the 
day  mentioned  in  the  first  and  third  verse,  though  truly, 
and  not  merely  metaphorically,  a  day,  or  self-measuring 
period  of  time,  was  not,  in  extent  at  least,  and  other  diur- 
nal incidents,  the  day  mentioned  in  a  part  of  the  fourth 
verse  where  the  dividing  office  of  the  sun  is  first  set  forth. 
For  this  transition,  there  are  certain  irresistible  eviden- 
ces lying  on  the  very  face  of  the  account.  We  repeat 
them  because  it  is  strange  they  should  have  been  so  over- 

'  The  word  lioavens  presents,  iu  other  aspects,  a  complete  parallel.  It 
carries  the  same  essential  idea,  whether  we  apply  it  to  the  atmospherical 
heavens  or  the  astronomical,  aUhough  one  is  inconceivably  more  remote 
than  the  other,  and  iu  i' self  may  present  any  number  of  gradations  of  the 
same  conception.  We  find  this  latter,  or  astronomical  sense,  coming  into 
the  subsequent  Hebrew  writings,  where  they  speak  of  the  heaven  above 
the  heavens,  'or  heaven  of  heavens  (as  though  we  should  say  day  of  days)  ;. 
but  wh.ther  in  the  nearer  or  the  larger  view,  it  was  the  same  radical  con- 
ception, satisfied  by  the  same  term,  and  allowing  of  an  immediate  transi 
tion  from  one  to  the  other,  without  surprize  or  any  seeming  need  of  ex- 
planation. Just  so,  in  this  very  record,  we  have  an  undoubted  transitioii. 
in  the  use  of  the  word  day  in  the  beginning  of  Chapter  ii,  where  it  is  ap- 
plied t:  all  the  creative  generations  taken  as  one  cvcle. 


74  GOD-DITIDED  —  SUN-DIVIDED    DATS. 

looked  in  modern  times,  although  they  arrested  the  atten- 
tion of  older  commentators.     These   latter  mentioned 
days  are  expressly  described  as  sun-divided — the  first 
Tf  ere  G-od-divided.     The  one  class  lay  within  the  natural 
ongoings  of  a  system  set  in  order,  the  other  belonged  to 
the  supernatural  originations.     The  one  was  connected 
with  and  measured  by  cosmical  relations  from  without, 
the  other  had  its  measurement  only  from  the  work  or  law 
of  working  within  ;  the  one  class  were  solar  days  keep- 
ing times  for  the  inhabitants  that  should  be  on  the  earth, 
or  for  the  internal  economical  arrangements  of  the  earth 
itself ;  the  other  were  ceonic  or  olamic  days  measuring 
the  earth's  relations  to  the  universal  ongoings  of  time,  or 
the  great  worlds  or  ages  before  and  after.     The  proof  of 
our  assertion  is,  that  there  was  no  sun  in  the  sky  to  divide 
them  —  the  very  manifestation  of  the  sun  is  one  of  their 
works.    It  being  certain,  therefore,  that  they  were  not 
common  or  solar  days  in  the  more  important  idea  (import- 
ant we  mean  for  a  solar  day)  of  being  measured  by  the 
sun,  we  have  no  warrant  at  all  for  forcing  in  the  narrow 
aad  far  less  essential  idea  of  that  exact  duration  which 
such  a  mode  of  measurement  now  gives,  and  on  which  such 
duration  is  entirely  dependent.     But  this  we  have  else- 
where discussed  at  length,  and  to  it  the  reader  is  refer- 
red.    It  is  an  argument  that  Mr.  Lord  has  made  no 
attempt  at  answering,  although  it  was  put  directly  in  his 
way.     Why  should  the  exact  duration  be  insisted  on  when 
other  and  more  essential  elements  of  the  idea  of  a  common 
or  solar  day  are  necessarily  excluded  ?    The  question 
is  not  answered.     "We  do  not  think  it  can  be  answered. 
But  to  resume  our  sketch.     In  the  same  manner  might 
we  go  through  the  other  great  days.     They  present  a 


THE   SABBATH.  75 

continual  succession  of  appearances  or  mornings.  We 
had  spoken  of  the  glorious  fourth  day,  when  the  Meorim 
or  Great  Lights  (lighters,  luminaries)  are  hung  out  in  the 
heavens.  Again  goes  forth  the  Omnific  Word.  There 
is  a  new  appearance,  a  new  life  ;  —  and  this  is  the  fifth 
morning.  Again  —  an  appearance  still  more  remarkable 
—  a  higher  life,  and  lo !  a  sixth  new  morning.  And  here 
the  hitherto  uninterrupted  mention  of  the  mornings  and 
evenings  ceases.  The  calendar  closes,  or  rather  this  re- 
markable feature  of  it,  before  the  creative  history  is  fully 
completed.  A  seventh  great  day  is  mentioned,  but  not 
a  seventh  morning.  It  is  the  beginning  of  God's  ineffa- 
ble repose,  whose  glorious  morn  is  not  yet  fully  ushered 
in.  Nature  yet  sleeps.  It  is  the  Sabbath  eve  of  the 
world.  What  its  full  morning  will  be,  can  only  be  learnt, 
as  far  as  it  can  be  learned  at  all,  from  the  prophetic 
Scriptures  which  are  but  the  complement  of  the  creative 
histori/.     Science  will  never  discover  or  define  it. 

There  is  no  forced  interpretation  here ;  that  is,  it  is 
not  made  by  pressure  from  without.  Everything  we 
have  said  is  in  harmony  with  the  spirit  of  the  record  and 
the  grand  ideas  it  most  naturally  suggests.  Everything 
comes  into  place  and  proportion,  if  we  will  only  take  the 
right  stand  point — if  we  will  only  divest  ourselves  alike 
of  our  modern  science,  and  our  modern  bigotry,  whilst 
we  interpret  the  first  supernatural  voice  of  God  to  our 
world,  in  a  manner  consistent  with  its  enchanting  simpli- 
city, and  on  a  scale  commensurate  with  its  ineffable 
grandeur. 


76  THE   WOr.D   DAT. 


CHAPTER  III. 


THE  WORD  DAY,  AND  THE  MYSTIC  NUMBERS  OF  PROPHECY. 

Various  Senses  of  the  lVo7-d  Day — Summary  of  Principles 

concerned  in  its  Interpretation — Eight  Heads  of  Argument 

—  The  Prophetical  Day — Analogous  to  the  Creative  Day 

— Numbers  as  used  in  Prophecy — Three  hinds — Definite 

Numbers Round  Numbers Perfect  Numbers — The 

Word  Day  as  applied  to  the  Closing  Dispensation  of  the 
World — Analogy  with  the  Creative  Account — Kedhem,  or 
the  Ante-time  State. 

Next  to  the  general  principles  of  interpretation  :voiild 
come  the  more  particular  arguments  applicable  to  ■words 
of  time,  and  especially  the  leading  word  day.  In  re- 
spect to  this  ^Yhole  class  of  terms,  there  is  an  important 
and  interesting  enquiry.  Have  we  good  reason  for 
thinking  that  there  is  a  wide  difference  between  the 
most  ancient  and  the  most  modern  mode  of  conception 
connected  with  them  ?  Hence  the  great  question  which 
is  the  hinge  of  the  whole  discussion,  and  which  we  would 
state  clearlj^,  yet  in  a  manner  wholly  independent  of  sci- 
ence, or  of  any  scientific  deductions.  Was  the  creative 
day  just  twenty-four  hours  in  length,  or  Avas  it  indefinitely 
longer,  and  yet  a  real  day,  not  metaphorically,  but  strictly 
and  truly  a  day,  in  its  essential,  cyclical,  self-measuring 
idea,  though  undefined  in  the  merely  incidental  feature 
of  its  duration,  whether  relatively  long  or  short — that  is. 


METAPHORICAL   SENSE.  77 

in  comparison  "with  any  times  out  of  itself.  Whether 
such  a  view  would  satisfy  any  real  or  fancied  difficulties 
of  science,  was  not  the  enquiry.  It  was  hoped  it  might 
do  something  towards  such  a  result.  Scientific  men  dif- 
fer about  it.  Some  of  highest  note  think  it  would  furnish 
a  fair  ground  for  a  harmony ;  others  would  still  reject 
the  idea  of  reconcihation  on  this  or  any  other  ground. 
It  would  be  absurd  in  the  writer  to  say  he  felt  no  interest 
in  the  fact  of  such  agreement ;  but  he  certainly  can  say 
that  he  would  not  allow  it  to  affect  the  principles  or  me- 
thod of  the  Biblical  enquiry.  What  is  the  fair  interpre- 
tation of  the  word  day,  as  it  stands  in  a  certain  very  an- 
cient Record  dealing  in  very  extraordinary  ideas,  and 
expressed  in  very  remarkable  language  ?  This  enquiry 
pervades  the  book  which  has  been  charged  with  natural- 
ism; everything  is  subservient  to  such  an  issue.  All 
seemingly  divergent  discussions  grow  out  of  it,  return  to 
it,  and  terminate  in  it.  The  arguments,  or  heads  of  ar- 
guments, in  support  of  it,  may  be  thus  briefly  re-stated, 
and  presented  in  one  view  to  the  reader.     There  is, 

I.  The  metaphorical  sense.  This,  although  the  first, 
does  in  fact  furnish  the  least  reliable  argument.  It  has 
been  the  one  usually  and  mainly  employed  in  favor  of 
the  general  idea  of  long  periods,  and  yet  it  is  one  on 
which  alone  we  would  not  dare  to  rest  the  great  question. 
It  gives  a  possible  interpretation,  barely  reaching  to  a 
probability^  perhaps,  but  nothing  beyond  it.  We  want 
something  more  than  metaphors  for  a  foundation  here. 
We  make  the  distinction  because  this  metaphorical  sense 
has  been  confounded  with  something  widely  different  and 
entitled  to  far  more  consideration.     This  is, 


78  CYCLICAL   SENSE. 

II.  The  cyclical  idea,  or  the  evidence  for  the  cyclical 
meaning  of  the  -word  day.  A  metaphor,  as  the  etymo- 
logy implies,  is  a  change,  a  transfer  of  a  word  from  one 
department  of  ideas,  and  that  its  native  department,  to 
another.  The  essential  notion  is  exchanged  for  a  resem- 
blance or  analogy  more  or  less  fanciful  or  real.  In  the 
essential  idea  of  the  word  day,  the  chronological,  or  the 
thought  of  an  absolute  time  complete  in  itself,  yet  stand- 
ing in  some  relation  to  other  absolute  time,  or  times,  is 
an  inseparable  element.  The  metaphorical  use,  on  the 
other  hand,  transfers  the  word  to  the  expression  of  a 
mere  state  of  being  having  strictly  nothing  chronological, 
that  is,  no  real  connection  with  absolute  time  or  any  like 
recurring  periods  before  and  after.  Thus  the  "  day  of 
joy,"  the  "  day  of  adversity,"  the  "  day  of  prosperity," 
etc.  These  are  all  metaphorical.  They  denote  no  real 
time  —  they  are  subjective  mainly,  and  belong  not  to  the 
absolute  chronology  of  the  earth,  or  the  universe.  Now 
take  another  class  of  expressions  —  the  "  days  of  crea- 
tion," the  "  day  when  God  made  the  heavens  and  the 
earth,"  including  all  the  subdivisions  (Gen.  ii),  j^the 
"*'  days  of  prophecy,"  the  "  latter  day,"  the  "  day  of 
Christ's  reign,"  the  "  last  day,"[  the  "  day  of  Judg- 
ment," the  '^M-Efa  aiwvos  of  St.  Peter,  (2  Pet.  iii,  18)  — 
these,  it  must  be  felt  at  once,  have  a  very  different  cha- 
racter. They  are  chronological, —  completed  by  an  inner 
•cyclical  law  of  their  own,  or  by  the  divine  supernatural 
divisions,  yet  connected  in  the  great  chronology  with 
similar  periods  going  before  and  following  after  them. 
To  a  superficial  view,  this  may  seem  a  metaphorical 
■uense,  but  it  is  widely  and  essentially  diverse. 


WORDS    OF   GENERATION,  79 

III.  The  mention  of  the  morning  and  evening,  and 
the  peculiar  order  in  ^Yhich  they  are  repeated  as  indica- 
tive of  something  remarkable  in  the  day  requiring  such 
emphatic  repetition,  and  as  explanatory  of  the  name  from 
the  fact  of  two  such  contrasted  states  of  one  period — 
whatever  those  states  might  be. 

IV.  The  absence  of  the  sun  until  the  4th  period,  and 
the  consequent  impossibility  and  unimaginability  of  those 
more  common  characteristics  that  mark  the  common 
solar  day. 

V.  The  employment  of  words  of  generation,  or  terms 
carrying  in  their  roots  the  ideas  of  growth  and  birth, 
that  is  of  nature  —  like  the  Hebrew  irnVin  —  and  the 
using  these  for  the  ages,  growths,  successions,  or  daiiB  of 
the  earth. 

VI.  The  remarkable  language  that  is  held  respecting 
the  earth's  first  productions  in  the  third  and  fiftth  days, — 
language  implying  growths,  natural  causalities,  (though 
divinely  quickened,)  and  hence  driving  us  to  the  idea 
of  successions,  and  consequent  durations  exceeding  one 
revolution  of  the  sun. 

VII.  Argument  from  the  Sabbath — the  divine  Sab- 
bath as  a  continued  and  present  repose  from  creation. 

VIII.  The  ground  of  the  whole  discussion  as  sought 
in  the  old  idea  of  the  olams  or  time- worlds,  or  ages,  so 
strangely  used  in  both  the  old  and  later  Scriptures  for 
the  very  ivorlds  themselves. 

Such  is  the  outline  of  the  argument  and  its  pervading 
aim.  It  may  be  said  of  it  here  that  all  that  looks  like 
naturaUsm  (and  the  careful  reader  must  see  that  it  is 
only  in  appearance  or  from  a  perversion  of  language) 
grows  out  of  closely  following  the  record,  in  the  remark- 


80  ARCHEOLOGY   AND   ESCHATOLOGY. 

able  language  applied  to  the  vegetable  and  animal  growths 
— "Let  the  earth  bring  forth — Let  the  waters  bring 
forth."  If  it  is  naturalism  at  all,  it  is  the  bold  natural- 
ism of  Scripture,  such  as  a  poetical  myth-maker,  or 
a  sentimental  religionist,  or  even  a  science  that  takes  spe- 
cial pains  to  be  pious,  would  never  have  ventured  upon. 
If  it  is  naturalism  at  all,  it  is  a  naturalism  grounded  on 
close  interpretation  of  the  only  record,  and  ready  to  be 
abandoned  at  once  whenever  that  interpretation  is  shown 
exegetically  to  be  false.  We  do  not  wish  to  be  wiser 
than  what  is  written,  or,  through  fear  of  an  odious  name, 
to  shun  the  acknowledgment  of  what  seems  to  be  really 
revealed  as  God's  chosen  manner  of  working.  The  hypo- 
thetical reasonings,  which  have  been  so  unfairly  distorted, 
and  even  called  "  the  prominent  positions"  of  the  writer, 
every  candid  reader  must  see  are  simply  statements 
(with  answers  to  them)  of  objections  that  might  be  made 
on  other  points,  if  such  were  the  true  interpretations  in 
those  that  are  directly  treated. 

This  argument  in  its  broad  outline  —  we  say  it  freely 
and  fearlessly — has  not  been  met.  The  book  has  been 
the  subject  of  two  hostile  reviews,  one  assuming  the  spe- 
cial guardianship  of  the  Bible,  the  other  the  no  less  zeal- 
ous championship  of  science.  Of  both,  however,  it  may 
be  truly  said  that  they  have  not  affected,  and  hardly 
touched,  a  point  on  which  the  true  merit  or  demerit  of 
the  work  might  be  said  to  depend.  The  editor  of  the 
Literary  and  Theological  Journal  keeps  up  a  standing 
cry  of  infidehty,  danger  to  the  Scriptures,  undermining 
the  faith,  Platonism,  etc.  He  sees  a  total  wreck  of  all 
belief  in  revelation,  if  this  twenty-four  hour  idea  is  in  the 
least  called  in  question.     How  the  faith  and  integrity  of 


s 


DAY   FOR  A   YEAR.  81 

Scripture  Is  so  vitally  connected  with  this  particular  in- 
terpretation he  does  not  pretend  to  saj.     Why  there 
might  not  be  a  long  day  in  creation  as  well  as  in  pro- 
phecy, in  the  archaeology,  as  well  as  in  the  eschatology  of 
Scripture,  is  nowhere  shown,  or  why  the  large  scale  of  the 
word  and  the  idea  is  not  as  rational  and  as  natural  in  the 
one  case  as  in  the  other.     The  interpretations  are  not 
even  examined  to  any  extent  worth  noticing.     Words, 
idioms,  texts,  in  the  analysis  of  which  great  pains  have 
been  taken,  whether  to  any  purpose  or  not,  have  not 
even  been  noticed.     The  startling  difficulties  which  on 
the  twenty-four  hypothesis  he  on  the  very  face  of  the 
account,  are  hardly  alluded  to  as  difficulties  at  all ;  ex- 
cept it  be  to  bring  in  a  great  number  of  purely  gratuitous 
scientific  guesses — the  strongest  evidence  that  this  easy 
literal  theory,  as  it  styles  itself,  is,  of  all  others,  the  most 
difficult  and  unsound. 


In  addition  to  this  general  outline  view  of  the  word 
day,  in  its  varied,  hermeneutical  uses,  there  may  be  pro- 
perly presented  here  a  few  remarks  on  Mr.  Lord's  em- 
ployment of  the  same  word,  and  his  inconsistency  in  so 
freely  applying  to  prophecy  what  he  denies  in  any  sense 
to  creation.  This  belonged  more  strictly  to  the  second 
division  of  our  summary,  or  that  grounded  on  the  dis- 
tinction between  the  metaphorical  and  cyclical  meaning. 
As  it  would,  however,  have  interrupted  the  order  of  out- 
line, we  have  reserved  it  for  this  part  of  the  chapter. 
The  fact  to  which  attention  is  specially  called  is,  that, 
Mr.  Lord,  and  others  of  the  same  school,  are  compelled 
to  bring  in  the  aid  of  this  cyclical  idea  in  the  interpreta- 
tion of  the  prophetical  Scriptures.     What  he  will  not 


82  DAY   OF  JUDGMENT. 

listen  to  for  a  moment  when  predicated  of  the  beginning, 
or  first  times  of  the  earth,  he  takes  for  his  fundamental 
thought  in  all  that  relates  to  the  closing  dajs  of  the 
mundane  history^ —  or,  to  speak  a  little  more  pointedly 
and  pertinently, —  what  he  regards  as  most  infidel  and 
dangerous  in  archaeology,  is  most  Biblical,  most  evan- 
gelical, and  most  pious,  in  eschatology.  He  never  thinks 
of  limiting  the  Day  of  Judgment  as  revealed  in  Mathew 
and  Revelations  (if  both  passages  mean  the  same)  to  a 
period  of  twenty-four  hours ;  in  fact  his  reasoning  is  alto- 
gether inconsistent  Avith  any  such  idea ;  and  yet  it  is  most 
emphatically  called  in  the  Gospels  the  Last  Day — or  the 
Latter  Day.  So  also  of  the  day  of  prophecy  in  general. 
He  is  compelled  to  regard  this  as  something  different  from 
the  common  solar  diurnal  measurement.  The  style  of 
speech,  the  hue  of  thought,  the  elevation  of  idea,  the 
accompanying  emotion,  which  are  all  connected  with  the 
glowing,  aweing,  mystical  and  mysterious  language  of 
prophecy,  will  not  permit.  He  is  forced  to  take  up  his 
position  in  a  wider  and  freer  space.  We  are  in  the 
midst  of  the  extraordinary,  and  ordinary  words  naturally 
and  easily  take  on  extraordinary  meanings  —  that  is, 
meanings  not  radically  different,  but  on  a  larger  scale. 
We  have  that  feeling  of  vastness  which  so  much  more 
freely  arises  in  the  contemplation  of  the  unknown,  un- 
measured future,  or  the  remote  unmeasured  past,  than 
in  the  survey  of  the  well  mapped  historic  present,  as  wo 
may  style  the  region  that  lies  divided  and  subdivided  in 
the  current  astronomical  chronology.  This  is  the  real 
ground  for  expanding,  both  in  emotion  and  idea,  the  timo 
words  of  prophecy.  Mr.  Lord  feels  it  like  other  com- 
mentators, but  when  hunting  for  reasons  in  favor  of  such 


ALIQUOT   PARTS.  83 

a  mode  of  interpretation,  he  returns  right  back  to  his 
old  narrowness.  He  would  sustain  this  extra-t\Yenty-four 
hour  view  of  the  word  day  from  a  few  passages  of  Scrip- 
ture which  have  with  it  merely  an  incidental  association 
of  thought,  such  as  Ezek.  iv,  4,  6,  Daniel  viii,  14 ;  but 
these  when  examined  are  found  to  be  far  from  sufficient 
in  themselves  to  furnish  a  trusty  ground  for  so  important 
a  principle  of  interpretation.  Mr.  Lord  is  not  content 
with  it.  His  next  thought  is  a  glimpse  of  the  truth  in 
the  innate  cyclical  or  periodical  idea  of  the  word  day. 
The  essence  of  it  is  revolution.  But  the  year  also  is 
revolution.  Therefore  a  day  may  stand  for  a  year.  We 
will  give  his  own  language  (Lord  on  the  Apocalypse, 
p.  252)  :  "  A  day  during  which  the  earth  revolves  upon 
its  axis  has  a  resemblance  which  fits  it  to  be  a  symbol 
of  the  period  of  its  revolution  round  the  sun."  Although 
there  seems  to  have  been  chiefly  in  his  mind  the  mere 
outward  resemblance,  yet  still  he  recognizes,  although 
very  inadequately,  the  cyclical  idea.  Instead,  however, 
of  making  dat/,  thus  viewed,  the  representative  of  cyclical 
period  in  general,  he  treats  it  as  the  arbitrary  symbol  of 
•  another  period,  simply  because  that  second  period  is  a 
multiple,  or  pretty  nearly  a  multiple,  of  the  first.  It  is 
just  as  though,  in  space,  he  should  make  a  circle  of  one 
foot  radius,  the  symbol  of  one  that  had  a  rod  or  a  mile 
radius. 

"  In  like  manner,"  he  continues,  "  a  month,  during  which  the  moon  re- 
volves upon  its  axis,  has  a  resemblance  wliich  fits  it  to  be  a  symbol  of  the 
period  ot  its  revolution  round  the  sun.  The  forty-two  months  are  there- 
fore by  the  same  law  (the  law  of  mere  quantitative  resemblance  !)  twelve 
hundred  and  sixty  years,  and  solar  years  doubtless  ;  as,  though  the  monthly 
division  was  drawn  from  the  revolution,  yet  it  was  reckoned  of  thirty  as 
well  as  of  twenty-nine  days,  and  the  year  itself  was  determined  by  the 
revolution  of  the  earth  round  the  sun." 

But  the  greatest  difficulty  found  by  Mr.  Lord, —  as 


84  FRACTIONS   AND   INCOMMENSURABLES. 

appears  from  his  effort  to  remove  it, —  arises  from  the 
fact  that  the  solar  day  cycle,  in  its  absolute  duration,  is 
not  any  aliquot  part  of  the  annus,  and  therefore,  on  the 
prmciple  of  divisibility  alone,  can  no  more  symbolize  it 
than  the  side  can  symbolize  the  diameter  of  the  square. 
The  two  quantities  (viewed  simply  as  quantities,  or  aside 
from  their  common  cyclical  idea)  are  incommensurable ; 
— in  other  words,  no  number  of  our  present  days,  car- 
ried to  any  conceivable  height  short  of  infinite,  can  ever 
make  any  exact  number  of  our  present  years.  Extend 
the  ratio  ever  so  far  and  there  are  fractions  still.  The 
year  we  know  is  not  3G5  days,  but  365  days,  5  hours, 
54  minutes,  so  many  seconds,  so  many  thirds,  etc.,  etc., 
etc.  Here,  therefore,  he  is  compelled  to  break  his  own 
symbolic  law  (which  he  has  a  perfect  right  to  do  since  it 
is  a  law  of  his  own  making,)  or  introduce  a  looseness 
that  renders  it  worthless.  But  let  us  hear  his  own  state- 
ment of  the  difficulty : 

"It  may  be  thought  au  obstacle  to  this  construction  that,  as  the  poiiod 
of  a  lunar  revolution  is  not  thirty  days,  fortj-  two  lunar  months  are  not  equal 
to  twelve  hundred  and  sixty  days.  15ut  neither  are  twelve  hundred  and 
sixty  days  equal  to  the  number  in  three  and  a  half  years,  nor  the  number 
in  forty-two  months,  of  thirty  days  each,  equal  to  the  number  in  three 
j'ears  and  a  half;  the  astronomical  year  consisting  of  o65  days  and  a  frac- 
tion in  place  of  3G0,  at  which  it  was  reckoned  by  the  Jews  and  other  east- 
em  nations,  yet  three  hundred  and  sixty  days  were  taken  as  the  period  of 
revolution  of  the  seasons,  or  the  year,  although  they  were  known  not  to  be 
the  true  period,  and  thirty  days  were  taken  also  as  the  period  of  a  lunar 
revolution,  or  a  month,  although  they  were,  in  like  manner,  known  not  to 
be  the  true  period." 

Now  what  a  calculation  is  this  ?  Especially  when  we 
bear  in  mind,  that  it  is  a  leading  idea  of  this  writer,  that 
these  numbers  were  given  to  enable  us  to  fix  satisfacto- 
rily the  prophetic  times  and  seasons  as  they  actually  oc- 
cur in  history,  (whether  of  the  past,  the  present,  or  the 
future,)  to  determine  accurately  their  beginnings,  contin- 
uance, and  ending.     This  he  regards  as  an  important  and 


FRACTIONAL  ESTIMATES.  8& 

chief  design  of  the  prophetical  writings.  It  is  a  maxim 
of  law,  de  7mnimis  non  curat  lex  ;  but  this  will  not  do 
in  prophecy,  if  the  fixing  of  times  is  its  chief,  or  one  of 
its  chief  objects.  But  it  is  not  a  question  de  minimis. 
The  throwing  away  five  days  and  a  half  in  each  year 
would  make  quite  a  diSerence  in  the  beginning  and  end- 
ing of  any  period  he  might  choose  to  estimate.  It  would 
leave  these  important  dates  —  important  if  it  is  the  design 
of  prophecy  to  have  them  fixed  —  a  generation  or  two  in 
utter  uncertainty.  In  a  millenium  of  365,000  years, 
which  is  Mr.  Lord's  computation,  it  would  make  a  dif- 
ference of  5,000  years.  If  we  take  into  the  estimate 
merely  the  fraction  of  a  day,  5  hours,  54  minutes,  etc., 
then,  instead  of  305,000,  it  would  be  365,296  years, 
with  odd  months,  days  and  hours  still  remaining.  There 
is  the  same  difficulty,  only  arithmetically  more  perplex- 
ing, attending  the  computation  of  months  as  intermediate 
between  the  day  symbol  and  the  year.  Mr.  Lord  is 
compelled  to  throw  oflf  all  the  fractions,  and  this  on  nO' 
other  authority  than  his  own  artificial  law.  How  does 
he  know  but  that  there  may  be  mysteries  in  these  frac- 
tions, or  that  they  may  not  symbolize  occult  times,  and 
occult  events,  which  may  have  an  important  bearino-  on. 
the  great  result.  They  may  represent  secret  nooks  or 
niches  in  history,  either  of  the  past  or  future,  that,  instead 
of  deserving  to  be  thrown  away,  in  this  manner,  may  de- 
mand his  deepest  symbolical  research.  If  he  has  a  right 
to  reject  these,  another  commentator  has  a  right  to  take 
them  into  the  account,  and  rectify  his  computation  ac- 
cordingly. Such  consequences  would  seem  to  come  di- 
rectly from  the  rule  or  principle  adopted,  of  makino-  one 
measure  of  time  or  space  a  symbol  of  another,  not  from 

8 


86  PROPHECY  NOT  DEPENDENT  ON  OUR  CALENDAR. 

the  general  cyclical  idea,  but  chiefly  on  the  ground  that  in 
arbitrary  quantity  one  is  a  multiple,  or  nearly  a  multiple^ 
of  another.  We  would  treat  this  subject  with  all  reve- 
rence. Every  interpretation  of  Scripture  brought  out 
by  any  serious  mind  is  entitled  to  our  respect.  But  we 
can  not  help  distrusting  a  method  which  would  thus  make 
important  periods,  or  rather  important  ideas,  in  prophecy 
tiius  to  depend  on  the  varying  calculations  coming  from 
adopting  this  or  that  canon  by  which  scientific  or  unsci- 
entific ages  and  nations  have  regulated  their  ever  ill-re- 
gulated calendar.  If  the  day  may  symbolically  repre- 
sent a  little  less  or  a  little  more  than  the  year's  revolution, 
(to  say  nothing  of  the  fact  that  both  the  daily  and  the 
yearly  revolution  may  in  some  remote  periods  be  astro- 
nomically very  different  from  what  they  now  are,)  then 
it  may  represent  Avhatever  the  fancy  of  the  interpreter 
may  connect  with  such  arbitrary  measurements.*  In- 
stead of  treating  the  prophetic  arithmetic  in  this  conven- 

**  It  need  only  to  be  remarked  tliat  this  is  said  wholly  of  the  actual  ftil- 
filment.  Such  fulfilment  will,  of  course,  be  exactly  true  on  some  principlft 
in  nature,  or  in  numbers,  or  in  natural  anil  historical  causes,  that  will  al- 
low of  no  uncertainty.  But  in  the  manner  of  representing  it,  whether 
symbolically,  or  by  any  other  kind  of  langunge,  words,  and  the  attending 
conceptions  partake  of  all  the  imperfections  belonging  to  everj'  kind  of  hu- 
man media.  The  sacred  writer  may  use  30  days  for  a  month,  and  360  days 
for  a  year, — wo  think  he  does  so, — but  it  is  not  easy  to  bring  ourselves  to 
lielieve,  that  if  the  millcnial  aeon  is  to  be  exactly  36.5,000  years,  it  will  not 
be  that  number  of  years  in  their  natural,  perfect  estimate,  but,  in  fact,  364,  • 
704  such  years,  in  order  to  correspond  to  an  imperfect  mode  of  reckoning 
employed  so  far  oft"  in  the  infancy  of  our  world.  In  other  words,  the  pro- 
jihclic  fulfilment  ran  not  share  the  imperfection  of  the  symbol  (for  that 
imperfection  is  a  changiuf^  quantily)  and,  therefore,  on  this  principle,  the 
interpreter  is  bound  to  apply  bis  science  to  verify  the  residt.  ^Vc  say, 
on  t.his  principk',  for  the  very  fact  that  such  scientific  estimates  must  be 
applied,  shows  that  the  multiple  principle  itself.ne  thus  employed,  must  be 
fundamentally  wrong. 


THE   MILLERITES.    '  87 

ient  fashion,  the  safest,  although  perhaps  not  the  easiest, 
way,  would  be  to  keep  in  the  fractions.  Some  of  the 
Millerite  calculations  had  to  be  altered  and  re-altered  on 
this  principle.  At  times  the  error  was  supposed  to  arise 
from  the  fractions  being  put  on,  and  again  from  their 
being  left  off.  Peace  to  those  deluded  men.  We  would 
not  join  even  the  religious  world  in  scoffing  at  them. 
There  is  something  more  sublime  in  their  error  than  in 
many  of  the  world's  most  lauded  truths.  They  had  a 
great  principle  of  faith  to  which  we  who  so  often  repeat 
in  our  creeds  that  '-  Christ  shall  come  to  judge  the  quick 
and  the  dead  at  the  last  day,"  have  become  too  indifferent, 
if  we  may  not  say  too  sceptical.  But  they  erred  as  to 
times.  They  carried  out  too  faithfully  that  same  idea 
of  multiples  to  which  Mr.  Lord  tries  in  vain  to  adhere, 
and  in  Avhich  attempt,  both  he  and  they  go  contrary  to 
the  Scriptural  declaration  that  it  is  not  for  men  "  to 
know  the  times  and  seasons  which  the  Father  hath  put 
in  his  own  power."  It  is  not  on  the  ground  of  equal 
quantitative  ratios,  exact  fractions,  or  aliquot  parts,  but 
as  representative  directly,  and  not  metaphorically,  of  the 
cyclical  idea,  that  the  word  day  seems  to  be  used  in  the 
language  both  of  creation  and  prophecy.  In  both  cases 
great  outlines,  orders,  successions,  contrasts,  and  rela- 
tive proportions  of  events,  are  shadowed  forth,  rather 
than  exact  durations,  whether  of  hours  or  of  years,  or 
any  current  dates  in  the  anno  domini  astronomical  calen- 
dar, whether  regulated  by  the  Csesar,  the  Parliament,  or 
the  Pope. 

Mr.  Lord  starts  with  something  of  this  cyclical  idea, 
but  spoils  it  in  carrying  it  out.  A  little  thought  would 
ehow  us  that  the  day  in  prophecy  is  not  to  be  bound  down 


00  TOPOGRAPHY    OF   THE   NEW  JERUSALEM. 

by  any  such  nice  calculations,  any  more  than  terms  of 
space  used  in  a  precisely  similar  manner.  A  furlong  in 
the  Holy  City  might  just  as  well  be  made  a  symbol  of  a 
mile,  or  of  a  league,  or  of  a  geographical  degree,  and 
"with  even  more  ease,  for  these  measures  are  exact  mul- 
tiples and  divisors  of  each  other.  We  might  just  as  well 
attempt,  in  this  Avay,  to  give  the  dimensions  of  the  New 
Jerusalem  as  its  chronology, —  its  territorial  extent  in 
space,  as  well  as  the  months  and  years  and  millenia  of 
•God's  kingdom  in  time.  The  Apostolical  Seer  has  pre- 
sented to  us  a  glorious  picture  of  the  Civitas  Dei  —  its 
twelve  pearly  gates,  its  harmonious  geometrical  dimen- 
sions, its  river  of  water  of  life,  its  trees  and  fruits,  ita 
"  gardens  and  its  pleasant  walks," 

Its  bulwarks  of  salvation  strong, 
And  streets  of  shining  gold. 

Now,  in  utter  contempt  of  all  this  spiritual  beauty,  one 
might  as  well  attempt  to  bring  it  into  feet  and  barley- 
corns, or  to  determine  its  latitude  and  longitude  on  the 
celestial  sphere,  as  apply  any  analogous  computation  of 
•current  years  or  centuries  to  the  ages  that  precede  it,  or 
that  measure  its  continuance. 

There  are  in  Scripture  two  very  distinguishable  me- 
thods of  employing  members  in  their  relations  to  time  and 
space.  Both  of  them  are  found  in  the  prophetical  writ- 
ings. These  are,  1st,  definite  numbers,  or  those  that 
appear  to  he  such,  and,  2d,  what  may  be  called  full  and 
perfect  numbers,  or,  as  we  sometimes  style  them,  round 
numbers.  The  first  class  would  seem  to  be  used  for  no 
other  purpose  than  the  mere  designation  of  quantity,  or 
to  mark  definitely  some  actual  number,  extent,  or  magni- 


SCRIPTURAL   NUMBERS.  89 

tiude,  in  that  of  which  they  are  predicated.  In  the  use 
of  the  second,  precise  quantity,  if  it  be  meant  at  all,  is 
more  easily  seen  to  be  a  subordinate  idea.  The  struc- 
ture or  peculiar  law  of  such  numbers  shows  that  some 
other  thought  connected  with  them  is  predominant. 
This  may  be  fullness,  roundness  in  the  sense  of  harmoni- 
ous complement  of  parts,  or,  if  it  be  quantity  at  all,  it  is 
quantity  in  its  more  general  and  comparative  aspects  of 
greatness  or  brevity  rather  than  precise  numerical  ex- 
tent. Such  numbers  as  the  1260  days  of  Revelations, 
and  the  1260  and  1290  of  Daniel,  would  seem  to  have 
their  pla^e  in  the  first  class.  As  belonging  to  the  second, 
there  would  easily  suggest  themselves  "  the  twice  ten 
thousand  chariots  of  God,"  in  the  Lxvirith  Psalm  ;  the 
"  ten  thousand  times  ten  thousand"  of  the  celestial  ar- 
mies mentioned  by  Daniel ;  some  of  the  estimates  in  Eze- 
kiel's  Vision,  such  as  the  successive  thousand  cubits  of 
the  mysterious  river  that  came  forth  from  the  temple,  the 
144,000  whom  John  saw  standing  on  Mount  Zion,  the 
cubical  dimensions  of  the  New  Jerusalem,  the  numbers 
3,  7  and  12,  as  variously  used  in  the  Bible,  and  especi- 
ally the  1,000  years  or  millenium  of  the  Apocalypse. 

It  is  the  first  kind  of  numbers  as  used  by  Daniel  and 
John,  or  as  they  seem  to  be  iised  by  them,  that  has  foimed 
the  favorite  study  of  a  certain  class  of  commentators. 
The  great  yet  ever  unsuccessful  effort  has  been  to  get 
the  1260  days  into  current  anno  domini  years,  with  a 
fixed  beginning  and  end  corresponding  to  some  known 
events  in  history.  This  has  been  on  the  principle  of  a 
day  for  a  year  regarded  as  sanctioned  by  such  passages 
as  Ezekiel  iv,  4-6 ;  or  on  the  more  satisfactory  ground, 
which  Mr.  Lord  partly  assumes,  of  the  common  cycUcal 

r 


90  "  THE  TIME,   TIMES,   AND   A   HALF." 

idea,  wliereby  one  may  be  taken  as  the  representative  of 
the  other.  It  is,  however,  a  very  fair  question,  whether 
these  numbers  are  really  intended  for  definite  represen- 
tatives, or  do  not,  in  fact,  and  notwithstanding  their  ap- 
pearance of  precision,  belong  to  the  second  class.  That 
they  can  be  reduced  to  it,  we  think  can  be  made  to  appear 
from  the  following  considerations.  The  careful  reader 
can  not  overlook  the  fact  that,  in  both  the  prophetic  parts 
of  the  Bible  referred  to,  these  apparently  so  definite  num* 
bers  occur  in  unmistakable  connection  with  another  ex- 
pression of  the  opposite  character,  but  evidently  intended 
to  denote  the  same  time,  times,  or  periods,  whatever  they 
may  be.  Ever  accompanying  the  1260  days,  both  in 
Daniel  and  John,  are  the  "  time,  times,  and  the  dividing 
of  a  time"  of  the  one,  and  the  "  time,  times,  and  half  a 
time,"  of  the  other* — or,  if  we  employ  the  dual,  as  it  is 
•clearly  implied  in  the  plural  form  of  the  Hebrew  word, 
it  would  be,  "  a  time,  two  times,  a  dividing  of  a  time." 
Now  the  one  of  these,  or  the  1260  days,  has  a  strong  ap- 
pearance of  arithmetical  precision;  the  principal  feature 
•  of  the  other  is  its  mystic  indefiniteness, —  and  yet  there 
-can  be  no  doubt  that  they  refer  to  the  same  periods,  and 
Include  the  same  class  of  events.  The  question,  there- 
fore, fairly  arises  —  w^hich  of  these  presents  the  funda- 
mental conception,  and  is  therefore  to  control  in  the  in- 
terpretation of  the  other.  We  have  no  hesitation  in  an- 
swering, the  latter.  The  indefinite  is  the  ground,  and 
the  apparently  definite  is  derived  from  it.     Aside  from 

"Daniel,  xii,  7,  vii,  25,  Apoc.  xii,  14.  "  And  he  swarc  by  Him  who 
liveth  for  ever  that  in  a  time,  times,  and  division  of  a  time,  and~when  there 
shall  be  finished  the  scattering  of  the  Holy  People,  all  these  things  shall 
be  completed."  Vulgate — in  ie mpus,  tcmpora,  et  dittiidiam  temporlB.— 
LXX— xajfov,  xai^ous,  rjfiKfv  xai^ou. 


WHICH   IS   THE   GROUND   CONCEPTION?  91 

such  a  view  being  more  in  accordance  ^yith  the  general 
style  of  prophecy,  which  is  emphatic  in  respect  to  courses 
of  events  and  ideas,  whilst  it;  is  designedly  enigmatical 
in  respect  to  precise  times  and  seasons,  being  truly  a 
revelation  of  the  one  whilst  it  is  in  general  an  obvelation 
of  the  other — aside  from  this,  we  say,  there  is  a  stronger 
reason,  and  one  which  seems  to  us  to  be  conclusive.  Un- 
less we  regard  the  "  time,  times,  and  dividing  of  time," 
as  the  fundamental  conception,  v/c  can  find  no  signifi- 
cance in  these  larger  divisions.  That  is,  on  the  other 
view,  the  three  times  and  a  half  time,  do  not  denote  three 
prophetical  periods,  each  having  a  character  of  its  own 
which  makes  it  stand  by  itself,  and  a  fourth  such  period 
or  division  uncompleted  ;  but  this  extraordinary  language 
is  merely  a  vague  expression  for  another  representing  a 
continuous  period  in  which  there  is  no  other  division  but 
the  current  times  (be  it  days  or  years)  of  the  almanack. 
It  is  true,  the  number  1260  may  be  broken  up  in  this 
same  ratio,  and  for  1  +  2  +  i,  may  give  us  360  +  (2  X 
360)  +  180,  or  12  +  (2  x  12)  +  6 ;  but  the  very  doing 
so  implies  that  the  simple  ratio  is  the  fundamental  con- 
ception on  which  the  others  have  been  constructed.  At 
least,  it  must  have  been  so  to  the  mind  that  first  enter- 
tained and  uttered  it.  After  the  numbers  have  been 
given  to  us,  we  can  proceed  either  way,  from  the  divisors 
to  the  multiples,  or  from  the  multiples  to  the  divisors.  If 
the  1260  is  the  ground  conception,  then  there  is  no  sig- 
nificance in  the  three  divisions  and  a  half.  They  belong 
merely  to  the  composition  of  the  number,  and  do  not 
outwardly  represent  a  corresponding  triad  of  times,  defi- 
nite or  indefinite,  in  either  the  outward  or  spiritual  his- 
tory of  the  world  or  the  Church.     If  so,  they  are  utterly 


92  MODE   OP  INSPIRATION. 

unmeaning  as  far  as  their  trinal  and  dimiclial  ratio  is  con* 
corned.  But  it  is  not  easy  or  natural  thus  to  regard  it. 
The  "  time,  two  times,  and  dividing  of  a  time,"  must 
have  a  significance,  not  only  in  its  total  amount,  which 
is  all  that  some  interpreters  ever  look  for,  but  in  its 
great  divisions  whether  those  divisions  denote  any  defi- 
nite number  of  current  years  or  not. 

Thus,  if  we  have  made  our  meaning  clear,  the  1260 
is  derived  from  the  3|,  but  it  is  difiicult  to  see  how,  on 
any  rational  ground,  the  conceptual  process  could  be  re- 
versed, or  the  3|  derived  from  the  1260,  unless  the 
former  had  been  someway  in  mind  in  the  construction  of 
the  latter  number.  Any  other  view  makes  the  mind  of 
the  medium  a  purely  arbitrary  receptacle,  with  a  blank 
numerical  conception  instead  of  any  idea,  thought,  or 
view,  out  of  which  the  conception  arises,  and  to  which 
it  has  a  rational  correspondence.  That  is  not  the  doc- 
trine of  plenary  inspiration.  It  would  not  even  be  ver- 
bal, but  purely  cabalistical. 

We  firmly  believe,  not  only  in  the  plenary^  as  the  term 
is  commonly  used,  but  also  in  the  verbal  inspiration  of 
Scripture.  That  is,  the  language  as  well  as  the  thought 
is  strictly  designed  by  the  Divine  Wisdom.  The  super- 
natural impulse,  though  distinct  and  special  in  itself,  and 
having  a  special  purpose,  yet  works  in  perfect  harmony 
-with  the  laws  that  connect  utterance,  conception,  and 
emotion.  And  yet  there  is  a  reason  for  every  metaphor, 
for  every  mode  of  speech,  for  every  peculiarity  of  style, 
that  grows  out  of  the  individual  mode  of  feeling  and  con- 
ceiving. Such  metaphors  and  peculiar  modes  of  speech, 
therefore,  instead  of  being  overlooked  as  no  part  of  the 
true  word,  or  treated  as  mere  matters  of  rhetorical  criti- 


now   DOES    GOD   EMPLOY  HUMAN   LANGUAGE?       93 

cism,  may  oftentimes  require  the  deepest  study  as  mani- 
festing the  divine  no  less  in  the  manner  of  utterance  than 
in  the  matter.  Yet  still,  these  conceptions  have  their  truo 
and  orderly  gro^Yth  in  the  human  soul,  and  after  tho 
laws  of  the  human  soul.  If  God  employs  true  human 
language,  he  employs  also  the  human  images  that  lie  at 
the  foundation  of  such  language, —  nay,  more,  the  feel- 
ings, whether  naturally  existing,  or  supernaturally  arous- 
ed, that  give  hirth  to  such  images  and  conceptions.  The 
dignity  of  revelation  is  no  more  impaired  by  the  one  sup- 
position than  by  the  other.  The  opposite  view  seems  to 
take  high  ground,  and  to  honor  the  Bible  by  depressing 
the  mental  condition  of  the  medium.  It  gives,  however, 
the  lowest  and  loosest  results ;  for  by  denying  any  fixed 
and  fundamental  conception  having  a  natural,  and  there- 
fore, determinable  place  in  the  mind  of  the  sacred  writer, 
it  becomes  the  cause  of  all  looseness  and  arbitrariness  in 
the  conception  of  the  interpreter. 

But  how  account  for  the  1260  ?  It  may  be  regarded, 
without  much  difficulty,  as  nothing  more  than  a  varied 
expression  to  give  it  more  of  that  enigmatical  aspect  which 
•is  a  designed  feature  of  the  Scriptural  hidha,*  or  oracle. 

*Weus3  tliis  term,  tlT^h,  because  of  it.s  peculiar  significance  in  tho 
Bible.  It  is  not  that  mere  matter  of  amuserncut  we  call  the  litliUe,  but 
something  as  significant,  that  is  in  its  own  way,  as  any  other  fjrm  of  speech. 
It  is  used  for  as  definite  a  purpose  as  the  parable  or  the  simile.  It  dis- 
tinctly announces  two  things — an  important  truth,  event,  or  idea,  and,  at 
the  same  tini",  that  there  is  something  about  it  which  we  can  not  know, 
and  should  not,  therefore,  be  tempted  to  enquire  into.  The  enigmatical 
language,  or  the  compUcation  (as  the  Hebrew  word  primarily  imports) 
•  performs  its  office,  therefore,  as  clearly  as  any  other  mode  of  speech  wht.n 
it  is  thus  understood — ;just  as  Daniel  understood  it  rightly,  when  he  said. 
"  I  /icard,  hut  I  understood  not."  It  was  the  impression,  we  may  think,  the 
vision  was  intended  to  leave  upon  his  mind  in  respect  to  tliis  matter  of  cur- 
rent days  or  current  solar  years.     It  may,  indeed  seem  a  parados,  but  tho 


94  THE   AWE   OP  THE   UNKNOWN. 

Paradoxical  as  it  may  seem,  there  may  be,  sometimes, 
a  profound  revelation  in  the  incomprehensible.  There 
may  be  something  higher  than  knowledge  in  the  awe  of 
the  unknown.  It  is  not  the  feeling  of  blank  ignorance, 
—  for  that  has  no  understanding,  or  comprehension  what- 
ever,—  but  rather  the  knowledge  that  knows  itself,  and 
the  limits  that  separate  it  from  a  higher  and  more  divine 
intelligence.  This  may  be  all  nonsense  to  the  Editor  of 
the  Theological  Review  and  the  Silliman  Professor  of 
Mineralogy  in  Yale  College ;  but,  without  having  the 
fear  of  either  before  our  eyes,  we  must  still  talk  Platon- 
ism.  There  is  a  hidha,  or  deep  speculation  of  Socrates 
about  knowing  what  we  do  not  know,  and  the  curious 
mystery  of  such  knowledge.  We  would  commend  its  care- 
ful  consideration  to  both  of  these  authorities.  It  might 
wholesomely  temper  the  infallible  dogmatism  of  the  one, 
and  reveal  a  field  of  thought  somewhat  higher  than  had 
ever  been  suggested  by  the  "  exact  science"  of  the 
other. 

But  to  return  to  the  consideration  of  the  prophetic  num- 
bers. We  may  not  understand  the  precise  reason  of  the 
use  of  the  1260  —  and  we  are  perfectly  willing  to  confess 

Propliet's  exclamation  sliows  that  he  coraprelicaded  well  the  method  cm- 
ployed  to  teach  hira  impressively  that  he  could  not  comprehend.  Then, 
language  is  employed  to  conceal,  some  one  may  say.  It  is  even  so — "It 
is  the  glory  of  God  (sometimes)  to  conceal  a  matter,"— even  while  reveal 
ing  something  most  impressive  in  relation  to  it.  Twelve  hundred  and 
sixty  literal  solar  days,  as  one  class  of  commentators  interpret  it,  or  1200 
cun-cnt  anno  domiiii  years,  as  another  class  regard  it,  have,  neither  of  them 
anything  very  occult.  The  first  is  plain  enough,  and  the  second  is  only,  in 
addition,  the  guessing  at  a  multiple.  Daniel  could  have  entertained  either 
view  as  easily  as  Mr.  Lokd.  Certainly  this  "  man  helovcd,"  so  "favored 
with  the  visions  of  the  Most  High,"  mast  have  been  in  a  psychological 
state  as  favorable  for  their  interpretation  (at  least  so  far  as  judging  of  num- 
bers is  concerned)  as  the  Editor  of  the  Theological  Journal. 


TIMES  UNEQUAL  IN  DURATION — EQUAL  IN  VALUE.  95 

our  sense  of  difBcultj  on  this  point — yet  still  no  less  evi- 
dent are  the  reasons  and  the  reasoning  by  which  it  is  shown 
that  the  indefinite  expression  of  times  is  here  the  funda- 
mental one.  It  furnishes  the  ratio,  and  that  gives  us  the 
law  of  the  idea.  It  is  a  ratio,  order,  division  of  period 
and  event,  and  not  precise  sun-measured  duration.  If 
this  be  so,  then  there  follows  a  most  important  inference. 
The  more  simple  ratio,  designating  the  larger  period,  or 
the  "  time,  times  and  a  half,"  gives  character  and  dimen- 
sion to  the  day,  instead  of  being  determined  by  it,  and 
that,  too,  both  in  the  representative  conception,  and  as 
that  conception  is  carried  out  on  the  scale  of  the  actual 
prophetic  fulfilment  of  the  common  ratio.  The  larger 
designation  —  the  "  time,  times,"  etc.,  —  having  nothing 
higher  of  which  it  can  be  predicated  as  a  measure  or  di- 
visor, is,  of  course,  indefinite.  It  would  not  even  follow 
that  one  of  these  mysterious  times  is  the  same,  in  precise 
duration,  with  another.*     God's  physical  movements,  es- 

*  They  may  be  unequal  in  duration  as  measured  by  solar  years,  but  equal 
in  historical  and  spiritual  value.  This  is  exemplified  on  the  lower  scale  of 
the  world's  most  secular  history.  Some  periods  are  vcrj'  brief  as  reckoned 
by  the  almanack,  yet^  contain  more  of  eventful  life, — the  world,  or  a  nation, 
has  done  more  in  them,  thought  more  in  them,  lived  more  in  them,  than 
during  ages  of  much  greater  extent  in  current  years.  It  is  true  of  the- 
physical  world.  One  period  of  less  cosmical  time  does  vastly  more  than 
one  of  greater  duration,  There  is  a  cycle  o(  birth,  as  well  as  of  gestation^ 
of  quick  working,  as  well  as  of  repose.  It  is  true  of  the  individual  man. 
He  does  more,  he  lives  more,  sometimes,  in  a  month  than  in  a  year.  Above 
all,  would  it  hold  of  what  may  be  called  the  spiritual  history  of  oar  world. 
The  few  years  of  Christ's  ministry,  the  succeeding  period  recorded  in  the 
Acts  of  the  Apostles — in  what  ratio  with  these  could  we  place  the  forgot- 
ten centuries  that  followed  the  Trojan  war,  or  the  stagnant  centuries  of 
mediaaval  Europe,  or  the  dull,  dreamy  Egyptian  and  Assyrian  dynasties, 
out  of  whose  ruins  modern  research  is  striving  to  extract  history,  with  so 
much  pi-omise  and  so  little  su(?cess, — the  whole  of  it  only  serving  to  show 
how  indispensable  the  clear  though  scantj^  light  the  Bible  throws  back 
upon  thosj  Godforsaken  ages,  and  how  little  their  "sphynxes"or  their 


9t>  ARE   THE  DIVINE   TIMES   ASTRONOMICAL? 

peciallj  in  a  regulated  course  of  nature,  may  be  sup- 
posed to  have  a  connection  with  astronomical  or  physical 
measures  of  time.  Even  this  view,  however,  would  have 
to  be  greatly  modified  when  it  is  applied  to  those  crea- 
tive and  generative  acts  which  are  concerned  with  the 
origination  of  nature^  and  the  very  adjustments  of  the 
measures  by  which  time  is  afterward  regulated.  But  in 
the  moral,  or  great  historical  movements  of  God's  king- 
dom, we  have  no  warrant  from  without,  and,  we  think, 
none  from  the  Scriptures,  for  applying  it  at  all.  At  the 
first  serious  impression,  the  mind  starts  back  from  the 
thought  that  the  timeless  One  regulates  his  great  periods 
by  our  almanacks,  or  by  our  single  planet's  astronomical 
measures  of  time,  whether  seemingly  arbitrary  or  seem- 
ingly natural,  whether  reckoned  by  the  clocks  we  keep 
in  our  parlours,  or  those  that  keep  time  for  us  in  our 
sky ;  —  for  in  this  connection  of  thought  one  of  these  is 
as  natural  as  the  other.  We  would  indulge  here  in  no 
mere  metaphysical  conceit.  God's  purposes  and  work- 
ings in  the  universe  —  the  moral  and  providential  as  well 
as  the  physical  —  have  durations,  indeed,  and  those  durar 
tions,  could  we  measure  them,  might  be  found  to  be  cer- 
tain numbers  and  fractions  of  numbers — be  they  more 
or  less  —  of  our  solar  years  and  centuries.  But  to  sup- 
pose the  divine  movements  adjusted  to  these  as  our  move- 
ments are  —  that  is,  to  imagine  these  great  epochs  as 

"winged  balls,"  could  tell  us  if  tliis  light  were  lost.  Is  it  uot  most  rational 
to  suppose  that  the  prophetic  times  are  to  be  measured  by  this  epochal 
value,  as  we  may  call  it,  in  distinction  from  astronomical  estimates,  which 
in  respect  to  the  real  historical  action,  may  be  altogether  outward  and 
arbitary  ?  It  is  in  the  highest  sense  the  real  value,  and,  therefore,  in  the 
highest  ai)d  truest  sense  may  we  suppose  it  employed  in  the  divine  pro- 
phetical estimate,  and  to  furnish  the  true  hermeneutical  principle  in  our 
attempted  estimates,  of  prophetical  equalities  and  proportion. 


PROPHETICAL  TIMES  NOT  COSMICAL.       97 

being  made  exactly  equal  to  each  other  through  measures 
taken  from  our  sun,  our  moon,  our  clocks,  or  exact  mul- 
tiples or  divisors  of  these,  so  that  instead  of  having  a  law 
in  themselves  determining  their  own  durations,  (as  even 
the  lower  physical  cycles  have)  their  time  of  day  and 
night  is  to  be  found  by  observations  wholly  outward  — 
this  is  the  thing  hard  to  be  believed.  It  is  possible  ; 
and  if  the  Bible  has  revealed  it,  we  must,  of  course,  bring 
our  very  falUble  reasonings  in  submission  to  it.  But  it 
does  not  seem  natural,  it  does  not  seem  rational,  it  looks 
like  a  violation  of  all  analogy ;  we  do  not  see  the  evidence 
of  it  in  the  Scriptures,  either  as  respects  creation  or  the 
great  epochs  of  prophecy,  although  there  may  be  some- 
thing of  these  solar  measurements  in  the  lesser  predic- 
tions that  have  special  reference  to  the  merely  earthly 
history  of  the  Jewish  nation. 

We  say,  then,  it  would  not  follow  that  one  of  these 
mysterious  times  was  exactly  equal  to  another,  although 
each  might  be  represented  as  a  great  year,  and  a  propor- 
tionate number  taken  from  it  to  be  divided  in  a  manner 
corresponding  to  the  divisions  of  our  annual  cycle.  The 
prophecy,  then,  would  denote  three  great  indefinite  peri- 
ods, and  the  part  of  a  fourth.  If  so,  it  is  the  multiple 
that  gives  character  to  the  divisions,  and  not  the  divisions 
first  reduced  to  a  definite  annual  or  astronomical  dura- 
tion, in  current  days  or  years,  and  then  carried  back  to 
determine  the  multiple  ;  just  as  though  in  the  physical 
world,  we  should  determine  the  day  by  the  hour,  instead 
of  regarding  the  hour  as  the  twenty-fourth  part  of  the 
day  cycle,  whatever  the  length  of  that  might  be. 

It  may  be  said  that  in  this  way  we  get  nothing  definite 
in  respect  to  the  actual  physical  length  of  the  predicted- 

9 


98  THE   SCRIPTURAL   HIDHA. 

times  in  current  calendar  years  ;  and  to  this  it  may  be 
answered  again,  that  such  would  seem  to  be  the  very 
intent  of  the  Scriptural  hidlia,  namely,  to  conceal  the 
precise  cosmical  time  from  us— to  put  us  in  the  very 
position  of  the  prophet  himself,  that  we  might  heai'  and 
heed,  yet  understand  not, —  that  is,  hear  (receive  into 
the  mind,  which  is  a  secondary  sense  of  the  word  in  most 
languages)  the  clear  epitomal  outline  of  events,  yet  un- 
derstand not  the  definite  solar  times  it  might  incidentally 
embrace.  It  may  have  been  to  take  away  the  mind 
from  that  search  after  current  years,  to  which  some  com- 
mentators are  so  prone,  and  to  substitute  for  this  vain 
pursuit  the  higher  study  of  cycles  or  periodical  courses 
of  events,  ■whether  regarded  as  existing  in  the  more  out- 
ward and  secular,  or  in  the  more  inward  spiritual  history 
of  the  Church  ; — we  say  the  Church,  for  the  serious  stu- 
dent of  the  Bible  must  sec  that  its  great  historical  idea 
is,  the  world  for  the  Church,  and  not  the  Church  for  the 
world,  which  is  the  favorite  notion  of  our  modern  secu- 
larized Christianity.  Commentators  have  followed  the 
other  method  to  exhaustion.  They  have  tried  every 
means  of  squaring  these  mysterious  times  to  anno  domini 
years ;  they  have  put  on  the  fractions  and  taken  them 
oflF;  they  have  changed  their  termini,  but  all  in  vain. 
We  would  speak  cautiously  and  reverently  here.  It 
may  be  the  true  way  on  which  light  at  length  may  shine. 
We  would  be  very  far  from  making  ill  success  in  the 
application  the  test  of  falsity  in  respect  to  any  method  of 
interpretation.  But  this  continued  variance  ought  at 
least  to  lead  serious  students  of  Scripture  to  look  about 
for  some  other  path,  and  to  seek  the  solution  of  the 
great  times  by  means  of  some  other  kind  of  cycles 
than  the  astronomical.     It  might,  perhaps,  be  discover- 


PROPHECY  HAS   ITS   OWN   CHRONOLOGY.  99 

ed,  that  prophecy,  like  creation,  has  its  own  chronology 
—  that  is,  one  which  instead  of  being  measured  by  sub- 
divisions from  without,  or  in  an  outwardly  fixed  course  of 
nature,  has  its  own  self-measuring  days,  and  times,  and 
seasons,  with  which  the  others  may  be  in  some  kind  of 
analogy,  or  may  not.  What  would  seem  to  aid  such 
a  view,  is  the  use  in  Daniel  (the  fountain  of  this  kind  of 
language)  of  the  Hebrew  word  ■jy'iw,  which  when  applied 
to  time  ever  denotes  a  period  whose  duration  is  limited 
by  its  own  law  as  constituted  and  appointed.  It  is  a  set 
time,  fixed  by  agreement,  whether  of  human  constitution, 
or  determined  in  the  counsels  or  covenants  of  God,  and 
measured  by  the  event  or  appointed  work  which  is  trans- 
acted in  it.  This  is  the  Hebrew  word  employed  Daniel 
xii,  7  —  "an  appointed  time,  two  appointed  times,  a  divi- 
sion of  an  appointed  time,"  fixing  upon  the  mind  the  most 
vivid  impression  that  the  trinal  and  semi-trinal  division  is 
of  the  very  essence  of  the  idea,  and  not  to  be  overlooked 
in  the  estimate  of  another  number,  whether  regarded  as 
of  days  or  years,  that,  when  alone  considered,  efiaces 
that  division.*     The  2;reater  mo'^-adldm  are  not  to  be  lost 

o 

*  The  absurdity  of  Mr.  Lord's  treatment  of  tliis  mystical  number  is 
most  striking.  The  two  witnesses  of  the  Revelations,  it  is  expressly  said, 
are  to  prophecy  iu  sackoloth  this  very  period  of  1260  days,  equivalent  to 
the  "tiiiie,  times,  and  a  half."  It  is  bis  theory,  however,  for  reasons  it 
would  be  too  long  to  state,  that  these  two  witnesses  ai-e  two  literal  men. 
It  is  out  of  the  question,  therefore,  that  the  number  can  mean  years  in 
respect  to  them.  To  suit  such  an  exigency,  it  must,  in  their  case,  be  re- 
duced to  literal  days.  In  other  words,  it  means  either  one  or  the  other, 
.just  as  these  accommodating  laws  of  symbolization  may  require.  There 
is  something,  too,  especially  curious  in  the  reasoning  by  which  these 
two  witnesses  arc  proved  to  be  real  men,  or  "si/mhols  of  themselves."  If  the 
reader  has  any  curiosity  on  the  subject,  we  refer  him  to  it  (oh.  xxvi)  as 
one  of  the  most  singular  specimens  of  logical  circularity  that  the  necessi- 
ties of  a  theory  ever  brought  out. 


100   CONNECTION  WITH  THE  SACRED  NUMBER  SEVEN. 

in  this  way.  The  prime  ratio  is  not  thus  to  be  absorbed 
in  the  secondary  representation.  The  Chaldaic  word, 
Daniel  vii,  25,  has  the  same  import.  So  also  the  Greek 
xai^o's  suggests  the  idea  of  a  constituted,  yet  self-deter- 
mining season,  rather  than  any  outward  measure  whether 
of  celestial  or  terrestrial  horometers. 

There  is  another  view  of  the  "  time,  two  times,  and  a 
dividing  of  a  time,"  which  gives  it  a  more  direct  connec- 
tion with  our  general  subject,  the  Creative  Days.  The 
thoughtful  reader  can  not  fail  to  see  that  this  strange 
•expression  represents  exactly  one-half  of  the  number 
•seven*, —  the  sacred  number,  the  mystic  number,  which 
from  the  earliest  period  was  held  in  religious  awe  as  re- 
presenting something  of  peculiar  interest  in  the  constitu- 
tion and  chronology  of  our  world.  Along  with  this  may 
have  been  connected  the  thought  of  some  curious  inhe- 
rent property  vfhich  it  possessed  as  a  number,  or  in  the 
relation  of  its  numerical  parts.  In  fact,  both  ideas  were 
united ;  for  this  looking  upon  the  world,  its  times  and 
constitution,  as  represented  in  the  mystic  properties  of 
numbers,  is  old  beyond  all  historical  date.  It  was  a 
musing  of  the  ancient  mind,  both  oriental  and  occidental, 
long  before  the  days  of  Pythagoras.  In  this  sense  of  its 
•extreme  antiquity  it  v^-as  certainly  an  a  lyriori,  if  we  may 
mot  rather  say,  an  a  primo  idea,  that  God  made  the 
world  by  weight  and  measure,  that  is,  by  number.     It 

*  It  comes,  tuo,  just  in  that  order  of  division,  from  which  the  mathemati- 
•cal  mystery  of  this  number  is  derived.  It  is  not  3J,  without  any  coiislitu- 
tion  or  distinction  of  parts,  but  1  +  2  +  J.  The  seven  series  is 
1  +  2  +  1  +  2  +  1,  or  rather,  (1  +  2)  +  1  +  (2  +  1). 
Daniel's  number  is  Just  one-half  of  it,  and  in  the  same  order.  Wc  siinj)ly 
cr.ll  attention  to  the  fact.  The  reader  may  judge,  for  himself,  of  its  mean- 
ing and  vauie. 


"  GOD    MADE   THE   WORLD    15Y   NUMBER."  101 

did  not  wait  for  the  slow,  groping  discoveries  of  modern 
Chemistry.  The  early  mind  reached  out  and  seized  the 
truth ;  whether  the  soul  recognized  it  as  one  of  its  own 
native  thoughts  which  it  saw,  or  thought  it  saw,  imaged 
in  outside  things,  or  whether  God  had  given  it  by  reve- 
lation and  tradition,  we  may  not  be  able  to  tell  very 
olearly  ;  but  it  had  it  in  some  way  beyond  all  doubt.  God 
made  the  world  by  number ;  and  so  the  world  was,  in 
some  sense,  a  number,  a  ratio,  a  harmony,  a  kosmos. 
The  idea  is  everywhere  in  language.  And  then  there 
very  early  followed,  or  rather  accompanied  it,  the  thought 
that  the  mystic  birth  numbers  that  entered  into  the  very 
constitution  of  things  might,  perhaps,  be  somehow  sha- 
dowed forth  in  the  world's  higher  chronology.  We  have 
been  charged  with  dreaming,  as  well  as  Platonism,  but 
we  beg  the  sober-minded  reader  not  to  be  impatient 
here.  We  do  not  intend  to  discuss  the  truth  of  this  idea, 
or  to  endorse  its  affirmance  or  denial.  Sufficient  for  our 
argument,  and  for  the  use  we  make  of  the  thought,  is 
the  historical  fact  of  its  very  early  and  deeply  grounded 
existence.  Of  the  sacredness  of  this  number  seven,  es- 
pecially, we  find  traces  everywhere.  When  men  had 
little  outward  physical  science  to  trouble  them  with  its 
details,  they  mused  much  on  their  own  ideas.  Especi- 
ally was  the  thinking  mind  —  and  they  thought  then  as 
much  as  they  do  now,  perhaps  more  —  drawn  to  that 
strange  class  of  existences  that  seem  to  belong  alike  to 
the  objective  and  subjective  world — the  world  within  us, 
and  the  world  without  us.  Numbers  exist  in  nature ; 
they  have  a  still  more  real  existence  in  the  soul  (not  as 
mere  umbrae  or  conceptual  images,  the  way  in  which 
any  outward  thing  may  be  said  to  be  in  the  mind,')  but 

9* 


102   NUMBERS  IN  NATURE — NUMBERS  IN  THE  SOUL. 

as  a  part  of  its  own  most  interior  furniture*  without  which 
it  could  not  be  a  rational  soul,  but  only  a  sensitive  life. 
Numbers,  then,  as  existing  in  nature,  it  was  thought, 
must  represent  something  like  those  properties  which  the 
mind  saw  in  numbers  when  it  contemplated  them  among 
its  own  ideas.  If  this  was  not  seen  directly  by  the  sense 
(as  in  that  infant  stage  of  scientific  discovery  could  not 
be  the  case)  then  it  must  be  thought  as  assumed  by  the 
mind.  For  somehow  there  must  be  an  agreement,  or 
else  God  did  not  make  the  world  by  measure  and  weight, 
that  is,  by  number ; — in  other  words,  it  did  not  come 
from  mind  at  all.f  Hence  the  tendency  of  the  earliest 
philosophy  to  find  out  nature  by  tlie  mind's  own  ideas  — 
to  think  out  the  world-problem,  its  figurative  forms  in 
space,  its  great  births  or  changes  in  time.  It  was  the 
"  a  priori  tendency"  which  Professor  Dana  so  flippantly 
condemns,  but  understandeth  not.  J     It  was  the  view  of 

*  Belonging  to  mind,  in  fact,  just  as  truly  and  as  inseparably,  as  figura- 
tive forms  belong  to  rnatlrr,  and  forms  of  motion  to  any  idea  we  can  have 

t  We  are  tempted  to  dwell  on  this  theme,  but  it  would  interrupt  our 
general  plan,  as  far  as  our  rambling  book  can  be  said  to  have  one.  We 
would,  however,  barely  suggest  to  the  men  who  cry  out  Platonism,  and 
see  so  much  danger  and  heresy  in  the  word,  that  it  might  be  worth  their 
while  to  examine  the  Platonic  mode  of  theologizing,  or  proving  that  the 
world  came  from  mind.  It  found  this  evidence  in  the  ideas ;  the  modern 
discovers  it  in  the  utilitiei^,  or  contrivances  for  happiness,  or  irdl  feeling 
as  the  very  essence  of  well  bcinf^.  The  latter  method  can  never  fully  an- 
swer the  Atheist's  objection,  that  the  use  may  have  grown  out  of  the 
construction  as  an  ejfect  rather  than  a  cause.  But  aside  from  this,  we 
have  no  hesitation  in  affirming,  and  in  maintaining,  whenever  necessary, 
that  the  Platonic  mode  is  not  only  more  sublimely  truthful,  but  more  pious, 
more  reverent,  more  in  harmony  with  the  Scriptures,  than  the  one  now 
iso  popular  both  with  scientific  men  and  theologians. 

t  The  consummation  and  most  perfect  result  of  this  tendency  may  be 
found  in  that  splendid  effort  of  genius  and  philosophj%  the  Timseus  of  Plato. 
It  ia  an  attempt  to  get  at  the  elementary /orms  and  elementary  motions  of 


ANCIENT   A   PRIORI   TENDENCY.  103 

wliicli  some  of  our  professed  Baconians,  misunderstand- 
ing Bacon  as  ^Ye^  as  Plato,  show  a  sort  of  dreamy  half- 
compreliension  in  their  sneering  lectures,  their  ignorant 
gibes  at  the  old  philosophers,  their  stale,  stupid  jests 
about  the  schoolmen,  whilst  they  have  no  wonder  for  the 
strangest  psychological  fact  presented  in  the  history  of 
philosophy  and  the  world  —  the  strangest,  we  mean,  on 
their  theory  —  that  metaphysics  should  have  been  so 
much  older  than  physics  —  the  supernatural  before  the 
natural  —  the  contemplation  of  "  the  things  unseen"  so 
much  earher  than  that  study  of  the  "  things  seen"  and 
tangible  that  is  so  predominant  a  feature  of  our  later 
times.  There  was  an  error  doubtless,  a  great  and  baf- 
fling error  in  this  one-sided  a  priori  tendency,  but  there 
Avas  also  in  it  a  great  truth,  the  loss  of  which  can  never 
be  compensated  by  any  amount  of  mere  physical  know- 
ledge that  rejects  or  holds  it  hght. 

The  reader  will  have  patience  with  our  rambling. 
This  is  a  tempting  theme,  but  we  must  come  back  to  the 
early  ideas  of  mystic  number.  There  was  a  supposed 
mystery  in  the  number  7,  arising  from  its  numerical  com- 
position. As  three  presented  duality  and  unity,  forming 
trinity,  so  7  was  a  dual  trinity  connected  by  unity.     One 

all  matter  as  derived  from  the  necessary  niatbematical  ideas,  and  the  ne- 
cessary dynamical  laws.  Plato  regarded  the  world  rather  as  an  idea,  or 
system  of  ideas,  than  as  a  power,  althoagh  he  fully  recognized  the  latter 
aspect.  Hence  the  Timoeus  is  predominantly  mathematical,  that  is — in  the 
ancient  sense  of  the  word — geometrical ;  for  it  is  the  application  of  the  term 
growing  out  of  the  modem  analytical  mathematics,  that  has  extended  it 
Dver  both  departments,  as  they  are  embraced  in  that  second  Timajus,  the 
Mechanique  Celeste  of  La  Place.  Of  course,  Plato's  Timajus  is  a  failure 
when  judged  by  our  college  text  books  on  Natural  Philosophy,  and  yet 
we  fearlessly  hazard  the  declaration,  as  one  we  are  prepared  to  prove,  that 
it  contains  ti'ixths,  physical  truths,  of  the  highest  import,  that  are  unrecog- 
nized and  unvalued  in  our  scientific  conventions. 


104  SEVEN   AGES    OF   THE   WORLD. 

half  of  this  corresponded  to  the  mysterious  '■'•  time,  two 
times  and  a  half.  So  it  certainly  is  numerically ;  how 
far  the  idea  was  an  element  in  the  Prophet's  vision,  the 
reader  may  judge  for  himself.  We  would  be  content 
with  the  unquestionable  fact  of  a  sacred  estimate  being 
early  entertained  of  this  number  and  of  such  modes  of 
dividing  it.  Connected  with  this  was  the  idea  of  its 
being  the  creative  7iuviher,  which  must  have  come  from 
some  early  and  wide  tradition  of  the  great  creative  times, 
and  also  the  doctrine  of  the  seven  ages  corresponding  to 
them  and  which  would  complete  the  historical  period  of 
our  own  world  or  olam.  This  is  to  be  found  in  early 
heathen  writers  ;*  Augustine  speaks  of  it  as  a  wide-spread 
belief;  it  was  maintained  by  the  Rabinnical  writers  as 
among  the  sacred  thoughts  that  had  come  down  from 
their  forefathers,  and  we  confidently  say,  that  aside  from 
the  inferences  that  might  be  drawn  from  the  passages  on 
which  we  are  now  commenting,  there  arc  discernible  tra- 
ces of  it  in  the  Scriptures.  The  "  thousand  years  as  one 
day" — the  thousand  years  of  the  New  Jerusalem,  as  well 
as  these  "  time,  times  and  half  time"  of  Daniel  and  John, 

"  The  germ  of  this  idea,  we  may  soberly  believe,  exists  iu  the  Hesiodian 
ages,  three  of  which  had  passed  awny,  and  the  fourtli  was  just  gone,  when 
the  poet  came  upon  the  stage  of  time.  Compare  with  this  also  Virgil's 
Sybilline  traditions,  as  referred  to  in  the  Fourth  Eclogue,  5: 

Ultimo  Cumaii  veiiit  jam  carminia  astas, 

Maguus  nb  Integro  stcclormn  nnecitur  ordo. 

And  afterwards  (12)  where  he  speaks  of  the  magni  menscs,'or  great  months. 
There  is  a  similar  relerence  iu  the  Vlth  Book  of  thcffiueid,  where  jEneas 
is  shown  the  souls  that  are  to  be  born  in  the  great  latter  <?ay  of  the  earth's 
history, 

Louga  DIES  pcrfecto  temporis  orbe. 
The  Platonic  magnus  annus  was  epochal  yet  measured  outwardly  by  as- 
tronomical or  cosmical  movements.    What  are  called  the  Chaldaean  magni 
menses  may  be  regarded  as  mainly,  if  not  wholly,  of  the  latter  character. 


A   CATHOLIC   IDEA.  106 

show  the  prevalence  of  the  idea.*  Being  thus  a  sacred 
thought  belonging  to  the  universal  thinking,  there  is  nothing 
derogatory  to  the  idea  of  revelation,  or  inspiration,  in 
supposing  that  it  ^vas  divinely  made  the  suggestive  source 
of  the  prophet's  conception.  Neither  would  it  at  all  af- 
fect this  conclusion  to  show  that  it  was  a  Chaldaism,  and 
that  it  came  from  this  source  to  the  Prophet's  mind,  and 
imaged  itself  in  his  divine  visions.  The  old  Chaldea  was  as 
directly  in  the  line  of  the  primitive  world-traditions  as 
the  Jews.  There  is  even  an  additional  value  to  the 
thought  if  supposed  to  have  come  down  through  an  inde- 
pendent channel  from  the  earliest  fountains.  It  has  a 
deeper  interest,  it  becomes  more  sacred  from  the  reflec- 
tion that  the  descendant  of  Abraham  found  it  among  re- 
mote kindred  who  had  preserved  it  since  the  early  day 
when  the  long-parted  streams  of  generation  first  diverged 
from  the  common  ancestors  who  dwelt  beyond  the  Eu- 
phrates. The  conceptions  of  John  were  certainly  influ- 
enced b}^  those  of  Daniel,  and  yet  they  are  to  be  regarded 
as  no  less  truthful  on  that  account.  What  danger,  then, 
to  faith,  in  regarding  the  Hebrew  Prophet's  conception 
as  influenced,  yet  divinely  influenced,  by  still  more  ancient 
thoughts,  which  had  become  catholic  in  the  world  for 
.•serious  minds.     There  is,  in  fact,  something  exceedingly 

"*  May  wc  uot  suppose  also  that  Paul's  style  of  language  was  suggested 
by  a  similar  mode  of  thiuldng.  We  refer  to  the  ■JrX^^WfAa  TWV  KAlPftN, 
Eph.  i,  10, — the  "fullness  of  the  times" — the  perfect  seven,  denoting 
lomple/cness,  as  the  "time,  times,  and  a  half,"  would  seem  to  signify  an 
unfinished  or  mediate  peiiod.  Paul's  expression  would  suggest  the  "mag 
nus  sajclorum  ordo,"  when  "all  things  shall  be  gathered  together  in  Christ, 
things  in  Heaven  as  well  as  things  upon  tlie  Earth."     In  Galatians  iv,  4, 

it  is  "the  fulness  of  the  time,"  "^^^  Xf*'^""^'  vn  the  singular,  and  the  refer- 
■  nee  is  to  the  human  birth,  or  first  coming  of  Christ. 


106       MIDDLE   OF   THE   FOURTH  HISTORICAL   DAY. 

interesting  in  the  thought  of  one  part  of  the  Scriptures 
being  thus  made  the  channel  of  inspiration  to  another. 
To  a  right  thinking,  the  Bible  becomes  even  more  pre- 
cious, the  proof  of  its  divine  inspiration  is  strengthened, 
bj  its  being  thus  viewed  as  the  channel  of  sacred  ideas 
that  have  lived  in  the  minds  not  only  of  devout  individ- 
uals but  of  ages.  Maj  we  not  rather  believe  that  for  so 
high  and  catholic  a  purpose  these  ideas  have  actually 
had  their  divine  origin  and  nurture  in  the  world  ? 

But  what,  then,  means  the  "  time,  times  and  half  a 
time"  ?  We  answer,  we  know  not.  Prophecy  in  its  expli- 
cation has  not  been  our  study,  except  to  note  the  many 
failures  of  those  who  have  attempted  to  reduce  it  to  defi- 
nite solar  years.  But  though  the  application  may  be  diffi- 
cult, still  the  reference  to  the  creative  times,  and  to  some- 
thing in  the  history  of  our  own  olam  corresponding  to  them, 
seems  more  clear  the  more  we  meditate  upon  it.  It  may 
be  an  intimation  that  the  Prophet's  vision  looked  half-way 
down  the  stream  of  the  world's  ages  —  that  it  brings  us  to 
the  middle  of  the  fourth  day  in  the  world's  historical  heb- 
domad, when  the  coming  of  the  Son  of  Man  may  be  like 
the  manifestation  of  the  heavenly  lights  in  the  fourth  cre- 
ative period.  This  interpretation,  indeed,  we  would  not 
press.  There  is,  however,  a  sublimity  in  such  concep- 
tions, a  high  moral  value  independent  of  all  numerical 
correctness.  One  thing  we  are  more  and  more  drawn 
to  believe,  that  prophecy  does  not  stand  isolated,  by  itself, 
measured  by  arbitrary  numbers,  but  that  the  world's  ar- 
chaeology and  eschatology  have  a  proportion,  an  analogy, 
both  of  times  and  events,  connecting  the  early  day  and 
the  latter  day,  the  days  of  preparation,  and  the  days  of 


HENGSTENBERG   ON   THE  APOCALYPSE.  lOT 

consummation,  in  one  grand  dramatic  unity  of  action  and 
idea. 

A  similar  view,  in  one  respect,  is  taken  by  Hengsten- 
berg  in  his  work  on  the  Apocalypse.  He  regards  the 
"  time,  times  and  a  half  time"  as  plainly  connected  with 
the  number  seven,  but  yet  as  possessing  no  chronological 
value.  As  the  whole  denotes  fullness,  completion,  so  the 
broken  number  denotes  a  period  incomplete,  and  compara- 
tively brief.  "We  can  not  wholly  accede  to  this.  Some 
chronological  import  seems  too  clear,  although  the  times 
may  not  be  measurable  by  our  solar  years.  It  is  a  true 
chronology,  but  of  the  higher  calendar.  In  other  words, 
it  may  be  truly  chronological,  but  not  cosmical,  that  is, 
not  measured  by  present  astronomical  cycles,  but  by 
higher  moral  periods,  or,  perhaps,  the  higher  physical 
periods  that  may  belong  both  to  our  earth  and  the  kos- 
mos  —  periods  having  their  cyclical  law  in  themselves, 
and,  therefore,  independent  of  outward  standards. 

Besides  the  number  seven,  there  are  a  few  others  men- 
tioned in  the  Bible  that  belong  to  the  same  class.  The 
chief  of  these  are  th'ee  and  twelve.  We  need  not  dwell 
on  them.  Whether  the  latter  is  connected  with  some 
historical  or  archosological  assumptions,  or  is  supposed  to 
possess  some  significant  arithmetical  power,  we  shall  not 
attempt  to  determine.  Was  it  mere  accident  that 
brought  out  the  twelve  patriarchs,  the  twelve  tribes  of 
Israel,  the  twelve  Apostles  of  the  Christian  Church,  as 
they  are  figured  in  the  twelve  gates  of  that  New  Jerusalem 
which  is  the  consummation,  or  fulfilment,  of  both  these 
standing  prophetical  types  ?  It  is  worthy  of  remark,  that 
there  is  the  same  historical  enigma  presented  by  other 
nations.     The  tivelve  tribes  are  to  be  traced  in  the  Athc- 


108  THE   DUODECIMAL   DIVISION. 

nian  and  in  several  others  of  the  Grecian  States.  Thev 
may  be  found  in  other  ancient  nations.  There  is  some 
evidence  of  there  having  been  such  a  division  among  the 
Etrurians.  The  Egyptians,  too,  held  the  number  sacred. 
Some  are  ready  with  the  explanation — It  came  from  the 
signs  of  the  zodiac.  But  this  only  pushes  the  difficulty 
of  the  question  one  stage  farther  back.  Whence  came 
the  signs  of  the  zodiac,  the  twelve  houses  in  the  sky  ? 
There  is  no  fitness  in  connecting  them  with  the  moon  : 
for  although  the  number  of  lunar  revolutions  in  a  year  is 
a  loose  approximation  to  twelve,  yet  she  passes  through 
the  circle  of  the  heavens  every  month,  and,  in  respect  to 
such  revolution,  the  duodecimal  division  is  as  arbitrary 
as  it  is  in  respect  to  the  sun.  Both  of  them  have  pheno- 
mena presenting  changes  which  may  be  brought  into  the 
divisions  4,  8,  16,  etc.,  but  nothing  to  indicate  the  duo- 
decimal. The  division  was  accidental,  or  else  dependent 
on  some  fact  now  unknown,  or  some  idea  not  now  recog- 
nized. 

Since  we  have  gone  so  largely  into  this  subject,  a  few 
remarks  may  be  allowed  on  what  are  commonly  called 
full  or  round  numbers.  These  come  out  of  the  decimal 
notation,  and  owe  their  property  of  roundness  to  that  fact, 
which  is,  in  itself,  entirely  arbitrary  as  to  its  origin, 
though  having  this  significance  when  established  as  the 
basis  of  all  practical  enumeration.  By  arbitrary,  we 
mean,  not  drawn  from  any  inherent  property  of  numbers, 
but  wholly  from  outward  application.  It  has  been  sug- 
gested to  every  nation  by  the  ten  fingers  of  the  hand  as 
the  most  ready  and  obvious  means  of  counting.  In  itself 
the  ten  has  much  less  mathematical  interest  than  the  four, 
the  seven,  or  the  nine  ',  and  this  strikingly  shows  the  ab- 


DECIMAL   OR   ROUND   NUMBERS.  109 

surdity  of  regarding  the  exact  numerical  extent  of  such 
expressions,  whether  they  are  fancied  to  represent  days 
or  years,  or  persons,  as  intended  in  the  fulfilment  of  pro- 
phecy. Thus  in  the  case  of  the  1,000  years,  or  the  mil- 
lenium,  as  it  is  commonly  called,  Mr.  Lord  is  not  only 
chargeable  with  this  fallacy,  but  he  makes  it  worse  by 
mingling  the  two  kinds  of  numbers  together,  in  one  arbi- 
trary product.  Instead  of  treating  it  as  one  of  the  great 
days  of  the  world,  having  a  vast  and  indefinite  extent, 
according  to  the  sacred  traditional  chronology  we  have 
already  spoken  of,  he  makes  it  in  current  years  exactly 
365  X  1000.  Now  he  might  just  as  well  have  main- 
tained the  precise  number  of  the  144,000  who  stand  on 
Mount  Zlon — a  number  made  up  of  the  round  cubical 
number  1,000,  the  cube  of  ten,  and  the  square  of  the 
mystical  12  the  representative  of  both  the  national  and 
the  spiritual  Israel.  He  might  just  as  Avell  have  main- 
tained the  cubical  form  of  the  New  Jerusalem,  as  to  have 
regarded  this  cube  of  ten  as  representing  that  exact 
number  of  days,  or  years,  or  multiples  of  years,  precisely 
measured  by  the  number  of  days  in  our  year,  accurately 
or  loosely  estimated,  with  fractions  taken  into  the  estimate 
or  left  out.  Can  we  suppose  that  the  exact  extent  of  such 
far  distant  times,  and  such  unknown  states  of  being,  are 
thus  dependent  on  an  incidental  method  of  computation 
well  adapted,  indeed,  to  the  representative  use  to  which  we 
may  put  it,  but  having  no  other  than  an  arbitrary  nume- 
rical association  with  the  actual  ages  of  fulfilment  ?  In 
other  words,  how  strange  the  thought,  that  the  absolute 
arithmetic  of  this  higher  chronology  should  be  bound  up 
in  the  precise  literalness  of  these  terms,  when,  as  in  Dan- 
iel's "  ten  thousand  times  ten  thousand,"  and  the  Psalm=> 

10 


110  Daniel's  seventy  weeks. 

ist's  "  twice  ten  thousand  chariots  of  God,"  the  form  of 
the  expression  would  strongly  seem  to  have  been  adopted 
for  the  very  purpose  of  cautioning  the  reader  against  any 
such  definite  conclusion. 

Daniel's  seventy  weeks  has  an  obvious  solution  with- 
out any  arbitrary  substitution  of  a  year  of  3 GO  days  for 
one  day.  It  is  not  490  days,  but  70  weeks,  and  the 
week  of  years,  or  seven  years,  was  a  well-known  measure- 
ment of  the  Jewish  chronology.  The  institution  of  the 
Sabbatical  year  made  this  hebdomad  as  natural  and  cur- 
rent a  measure  of  actual  time  as  the  week  of  days,  and 
the  Hebrew  V^'^,  which  simply  means  a  seve^i  or  hebdo- 
mad, was  as  applicable  to  one  period  as  the  other.*  It 
•was  seventy  times  seven,  and  taken  as  actual  weeks  of 
years  would  reach  generally  (though  without  an  absolute 
determinable  precision)  to  the  age  of  Christ,  as  it  has 
generally  been  taken  in  ancient  as  well  as  modern  times. 
There  is,  however,  good  reason  for  believing  that  hke 

*  There  was  another  still  greater  hebdomad  consisting  of  seven  times 
Beven,  or  forty-nine  years,  to  which  was  added  the  fiftieth  as  a  jubilee.  It 
is  particularly  set  forth,  Lev.  xxv,  8 :  "  And  thou  shalt  number  seven  Sab- 
baths of  years  unto  thee  ;  seven  times  seven  years,  and  the  space  of  the  se- 
ven Sabbaths  of  years  shall  be  unto  i\\Qe  forty  and  nine  years ;  and  ye  shall 
hallow  the  fiftieth  year ;  it  shall  be  a  jubilee  unto  you."  Wiiat  means  this 
widening,  ascending  series — seven  days,  seven  years,  seven  sevens  of 
years  1  It  had  a  connection  with  the  Jewish  earthly  economy,  we  know  ; 
but  has  it  not  also  a  higher  sense  ?  May  we  not  soberly  regard  it  as  giving 
■UB  a  hint  of  a  higher  chronology,  with  its  greater  Sabbaths  and  greater 
jubilee  ?  Even  as  the  Apostle  soberly  interprets  the  "  ark  and  the  taber 
nacle"  as  significant  of  "  things  in  the  heavens"  ?  In  connection  with  such 
a  view  it  is  easy  and  natural  for  us  to  believe  that  the  thought  entered  into 
the  prophetical  visions  and  lay  at  the  foundation  of  their  mystic  numbers. 

It  should  be  remarked,  however,  that  if  we  regard  the  Prophet  here  as 
aetting  forth  a  definite  historical  time,  it  would  he  Jive  hundred  years,  in- 
stead of  four  hundred  and  ninety ;  since  the  great  hebdomad  with  its  jubilee 
amounted  to  f  fly  years,  and  there  is  no  reason  why  it  should  not  be  reck 
oned  in  what  purports  to  be  exact  historical  chronology. 


TWO  MODES  OF  INTERPRETING  PROPHECY.   Ill 

the  other  numbers  of  that  majestic  book  of  Daniel,  it 
passes  over,  in  a  higher  sense,  into  the  chronology  of 
the  Christian  a)C>v,  and  may  reach  to  the  second  com- 
ing of  Messiah  and  the  New  Jerusalem.  If  there  is  any 
ground  for  such  a  view,  it  might  perhaps  be  found  in  the 
mystical  form  of  the  number  connecting  it  with  the  "  time, 
times  and  half  a  time."  It  is  the  great  seven,  the  square 
of  seven,  and  that  multiplied  by  ten  to  denote  roundness 
of  computation,  as  well  as  that  mathematical  symmetry 
which  is  the  symbol  of  chronological  perfection  regarded 
!nore  as  residing  in  inherent  cyclical  self-measurement 
than  in  any  outward  estimate  we  can  make  of  current 
years. 

We  may  be  darkening  counsel  by  words  without  know- 
ledge. We  M'ould  not  press  any  such  views,  but  we  are 
<iuite  confident  that  some  other  mode  in  the  study  of  pro- 
phecy must  be  adopted,  differing  from  both  those  that 
are  now  commonly  employed.  One  of  these  reckons  by 
literal  solar  days,  carrying  the  periods  of  Daniel  into 
isome  obscure  times  which  we  have  to  dig  out  of  the  dark- 
ness of  the  Antiochean  dynasties,  and  having  little  or  no 
moral  or  historical  value,  even  could  they  be  reduced  to 
any  tolerable  definiteness.  The  other  differs  from  this  ' 
simply  by  using  a  multiple  of  360  or  365.  The  great 
practical  argument  against  the  latter  as  well  as  the  first  is, 
that  it  gives  us  nothing  definite  after  all.  No  commentar 
tor  who  has  tried  the  experiment  has  ever  satisfied  any 
body  but  himself  and  a  small  clique  of  his  own  school.  So 
endless  have  been  the  interpretations,  so  varied,  and  so 
utterly  unreconcilable,  so  infallibly  uttered  too,  (of  which 
infallibility  Mr.  Lord  is  not  the  least  amusing  specimen,) 
that  confidence  in  them  must  be  seriously  impaired. 


112  IRRECONCILABLE   DIVERSITIES. 

This  fact  alone  would  be  sufficient  to  show,  that  there 
had  been  some  error  here.  Learned  men,  pious  men, 
most  acute  men,  have  labored  to  give  current  chronolo- 
gical significance  to  these  numbers,  but,  Mr.  Lord  him- 
self being  judge,  have  "utterly  failed."  If  we  may 
believe  him,  the  best  of  them  have  failed, — to  use  his 
■own  very  positive  language  so  oft  repeated, —  they  have 
■"  palpably"  failed,  their  computations  are  "  unquestion- 
;ably  wrong,"  their  starting  points  are  based  on  errone- 
"ijus  historical  views,  or  historical  estimates,  and  there- 
fore their  conclusions  are  utterly  unreliable.  Whether 
his  own  views  put  forth  with  so  much  pretension  and 
such  a  constant  condemnation  of  others,  are  entitled  to 
any  more  credit,  most  readers  will  find  no  great  difficulty 
in  judging.*     But  we  would  not  argue  from  failure  alone. 

*  No  meu  are  more  apt  to  raise  the  cry  of  iufidel  than  this  class  of  com- 
mentatoi-s  on  prophecj',  and  yet  few  things,  we  think,  liave  contributed 
more  to  bring  the  Scriptures  into  disrepute  than  some  of  these  books. 
Their  distortions  of  historjr,  their  magnifying  of  obscure  historical  events, 
in  order  to  get  the  termini  that  may  agree  with  their  hypothesis,  their 
secularization  of  Christianity  by  connecting  it  with  their  own  political  no- 
tions founded  on  abstract  ideas  that  the  Bible  does  not  recognize,  their 
•  consequent  exaggeration  of  events  near  their  own  times,  but  whicli,  in 
themselves,  or  as  th;y  will  appear  when  seen  from  afar,  have  really  little 
or  no  historical  value — as  Mr.  Lord,  for  example,  in  his  politico-theology, 
so  extravagantly  overrates  the  mere  mobism  which  a  few  years  ago  dis 
^turbed  some  of  the  capitals  in  Europe,  and  has  already  in  the  brief  space 
<of  nine  years  subsided  into  insignificance — all  these  things  have  tended 
not  only  to  weaken  confidence,  but  to  lead  men  to  overlook  the  moral  sub- 
lime of  which  these  mysterious  prophetic  books  are  so  full  when  contem 
plated  with  a  dift'orent  aim,  and  from  a  different  stand  point.  Similar  re- 
marks are  applicable  to  Mr,  Lord's  scientific  allies,  when  they  too,  in  their 
exuberant  piety,  attempt  to  raise  the  novel  cry  of  infidelity.  In  the  j)ro- 
moting'of  the  real  Bible-hating  infidelity,  next  to  blundering  interpretations 
of  prophecy,  may  be  reckoned  some  of  our  scientific  defences  of  the  Scrip- 
tures. The  amount  of  terror  they  have  for  the  real  infidel  might  be  easily 
tested.  In  this  very  controversy,  on  which  side,  so  far  as  they  have  mani- 
fested an  interest  in  it,  are  the  "  free  thinkers"  of  our  land !   Their  sympa 


SUPERHUMAN  MAJESTY  OF  THE  APOCALYPSE.  113 

It  would  be  unfair  for  the  Scriptures,  and  the  cause  of 
interpretation  generally.  It  is  in  the  Bible  itself  we 
find  a  warrant,  we  think  a  clear  warrant,  for  saying,  that 
it  is  not  for  man  to  know,  and  it  was  not  intended  for 
man  to  know,  the  times  and  seasons.  Such  is  the  ex- 
press language  of  the  highest  authority ;  and  aside  from 
this,  the  very  form  in  which  the  predictions  of  the  Apoc- 
alypse are  given,  show  that,  although  it  is  a  true  Apoc- 
alypse, or  un-veiJing,  as  to  great  outline  events  not  yet 
well  understood  in  the  ecclesiastical  or  spiritual  history 
of  the  Church,  it  is  truly  a  veiling  as  to  the  dates  or 
times  at  which,  and  during  which,  they  are  to  occur. 

And  this,  instead  of  diminishing  the  moral  and  spirit- 
ual value  of  the  Apocalypse,  does  in  fact  greatly  add  to 
it.  No  book  bears  more  unmistakably  the  impress  of  the 
divine  majesty — thai  "  beaming  and  burnmg  glory" 
which  the  old  divines,  to  whom  we  alluded  in  our  intro- 
duction, regarded  as  the  true  internal  evidence  of  the 
Scripture.  We  do  not  want  to  know  the  exact  duration 
denoted  by  its  mysterious  numerals,  to  be  impressed  and 
awed  by  it.  Indeed,  few  things  tend  more  to  take  away 
this  effect  than  the  frigid  calculations  to  which  we  refer, 
and  the  endless  controversies  as  to  dates  in  history  in 
which  they  respectively  commence  and  end.  It  is  like 
applying  the  statistics  of  a  town  and  county  census  to 
the  144,000  from  the  twelve  tribes  of  Israel,  whom  the 
Prophet  saw  standing  on  Mount  Zion.  It  is,  besides, 
taking  our  own  estimate  of  the  value  of  historical  events 
(according  to  our  poor  political   philosophy)   for  the 

tliies  and  affinities,  in  such  casee,  furnish  a  better  test  than  argument ;  and 
when  these  show  themselves  on  the  side  of  the  New-Haven  Professor, 
it  gives  us  the  precisely  measured  probability  of  their  being  converted 
by  his  "  Harmony  of  Science  and  the  Bible." 

10' 


114     DIVINE  AND   HUMAN   ESTIMATE   OF  HISTORY. 

divine  estimate  which  may  be  something  very  different. 
It  may  be  that  in  the  Heavenly  economy,  as  studied  by 
the  Heavenly  Intelligences,  or  even  as  viewed  from  that 
stand  point  to  which  the  unwordly  or  spiritual  mind  may 
attain  in  the  loving  study  of  the  Scriptures,  there  is  not 
attached  that  same  importance  to  Turks  and  Tartars,  and 
French  Revolutions,  and  American  Revolutions,  which 
they  possess  in  our  eyes.  Democracy  may  be  no  more 
the  object  of  Heaven's  care  than  monarchy.  It  may  be 
that  both  are  alike  among  the  idols  to  be  demolished, 
and  the  "  plants  to  be  rooted  up,"  before  the  coming  of 
the  Son  of  Man.  It  may  be  that  our  American  experi- 
ment is  for  a  warning  example  rather  than  an  encourag- 
ing lesson  to  the  ages  to  come.  Nothing  but  deep  initi- 
ation into  the  spirit  of  the  Bible  can  enable  one  to  form 
the  faintest  idea  as  to  what  historical  events,  in  this  dark 
world  of  ours,  belong  most  prominently  to  the  divine 
plan,  or  have  most  relation  to  the  higher  chronology  of 
the  higher  kingdom  of  the  eternities.  But  this  we  can 
not  help  feeling,  that  in  many  of  the  common  historic 
interpretations,  so  called,  the  glory  of  the  Apocalypse  is 
dimmed ;  its  sublimity  sinks ;  there  is  a  weakening  of 
that  deep  impression  of  the  mighty  Avarfare  God  is  wag- 
ing against  the  powers  of  evil,  and  the  enemies  of  his 
-Church.  Such  is  the  effect  that  is  felt  in  reading  some  of 
these  arbitrary  yet  pretentious  interpretations  ;  whilst,  on 
the  other  hand,  nothing  is  gained  on  the  score  of  historic 
certainty.  No  estimate  of  exact  times  and  seasons  com- 
pensates for  the  moral  and  emotional  loss  that  is  suffered, 
when  for  the  grand,  the  indefinite,  the  superhuman,  so  im- 
pressive in  outline,  though  incapable  of  being  interpreted 
jutt  detail,  we  substitute  the  poverty  of  earthly  calculations 


CREATION   LIKE   PROPHECY   INDEFINITE.  115 

SO  little  available  for  any  moral  purpose,  even  if  not  ren- 
dered altogether  worthless  by  their  endless  variety  and 
endless  irreconcilability  of  interpretation. 

And  so  of  creation.  Whether  we  measure  by  exact 
hours,  the  twenty-fourth  parts  of  the  present  terrestrial 
revolution,  or  by  strata  and  layers  of  fossils  which  we 
attempt  to  guage  by  space  deposits  and  the  supposed 
ratio  of  their  feet  and  inches  to  supposed  multiples  of 
years — the  effect  is  very  much  the  same.  We  get  no- 
thing exact,  nothing  reliable,  after  all ;  but  the  grand 
impression  is  weakened,  and,  when  pushed  to  the  extent 
to  which  some  would  carry  it  out,  on  both  sides,  utterly 
lost.  Leave  it,  as  we  reverently  think  Moses  has  left  it, 
indefinite,  unmeasured  by  any  historical  time-calendars, 
and  we  have  upon  the  mind  an.  effect  worthy  of  its  inef- 
fable glory  of  thought,  its  inimitable  simplicity  and  gran- 
deur of  expression. 

But  there  is  in  prophecy  (meaning  by  this  all  in  the 
Bible  that  looks  to  the  future)  another  use  of  the  word 
day  quite  different  from  that  of  the  mystic  numbers,  and 
more  immediately  connected  with  the  view  we  have  taken 
of  the  same  word  in  the  creative  account.  It  is  the  dis- 
tinct appUcation  of  the  term  to  some  great  epoch  in  the 
latter  history  of  the  world,  or,  it  may  be,  to  more  than 
one.  According  to  the  definition  given,  there  is  no  pro- 
priety in  calling  it  metaphorical.  "  The  Day  of  Judg- 
ment;' "  the  Last  Day,"  "  the  Day  of  the  Lord,"  or  of 
the  Lord's  coming,  the  "  Day  of  the  aeon,"  or  the 
aeonic  day,  the  V^'^"  aiwvo?,  2  Pet.,  iii,  18,  —  these 
are  not  metaphors,  that  is,  a  lu-sraipo^a,  a  change  for  rhe- 
torical purposes,  or  a  substitution  of  one  word  for  some 


116  EPOCHAL   SENSE   OP   THE   WORD   DAY. 

other  well  known  term  that  might  more  literally,  and 
with  more  objective  truth,  have  conveyed  the  required 
idea.  There  is  no  such  metaphor  here ;  for  there  is  no 
such  other  term  adapted  to  these  great  epochs,  and  whose 
place  day  may  be  supposed  to  take  merely  for  such  rhe- 
torical or  emotional  effect.  We  would  rank  it  in  the 
same  class  with  the  creative  days,  only  that  the  cyclical 
or  periodical  idea  does  not  so  distinctly  appear.  The 
revelations  respecting  this  great  time,  or  these  great 
times,  are  not  so  orderly,  the  mornings  and  the  evenings 
are  not  so  marked.  And  yet,  in  other  respects,  they 
present  the  same  features  suggesting  the  same  higher 
chronology.  Hence  we  may  style  them  the  epochal, 
and  call  this  the  epochal  sense  of  the  word  day.  The 
first  three  expressions  we  have  already  alluded  to,  and 
would  not,  therefore,  further  dwell  upon  them  in  this  out- 
line  view.  The  fourth,  or  the  one  quoted  from  2  Peter, 
iii,  18,  has  some  striking  aspects.  Its  peculiar  force  of 
terminology  is  concealed  in  our  translation,  where  it  is 
simply  rendered  forever  —  a  term  which  etymologically 
resembles  it  (that  is  when  carried  back  to  its  kindred, 
the  Latin  gevum,  and  Greek  a/wv,)  but  in  the  change  of 
thinking  has  lost  its  ancient  features.  The  Greek  phrase, 
as  it  stands,  has  the  epochal  idea,  —  that  is,  of  a  great 
time  by  itself  in  the  chronology  of  the  universe.  It  is 
the  "  dies  eternitatis"  of  the  Vulgate,  the  "  day  of  euer- 
lastingnes'^  of  the  old  Wickliffe  version,  and  the  '-'  day 
of  plernitie'^  of  the  Rheims.  It  may  also  be  fairly  re- 
garded as  the  New  Testament  version  of  the  &Vi»  ■>»•'  of 
the  older  Scriptures.  In  the  Old  English,  as  in  the  New 
Testament  Hebraistic  Greek,  the  noun  has  the  force  of 
an  adjective.     The  Vf'^a  aiuvos,  the  day  of  eternity,  is 


THE  ETERNAL  DAY  OF  2  PETER,  III,  18.    117 

the  eternal  day,  the  aeonic  day,  denoting  extent,  and 
boundless  extent,  yet  still,  in  a  high  and  perhaps  truer 
sense,  quality  rather  than  quantity,  or  the  character  of 
the  day  as  belonging  to  the  great  aeonic  chronology, 
whether  it  is  to  be  regarded  as  a  single  aiijv  in  itself,  or 
an  aiwv  Twv  aiwvwVj  an  aeon  measured  by  aeons  as  lesser 
ages  are  measured  by  centuries  and  years.  In  any  way, 
how  different,  as  thus  appearing,  from  that  blank  concep- 
tion we  connect  with  those  withered  words  of  ours  that 
can  only  regain  their  life  and  clear  impression  by  being 
carried  back  to  be  stamped  anew  in  the  ancient  mint. 
Wickliffe's  version  here,  though  made  from  the  Vulgate, 
is  better  than  our  own,  and  that  by  reason  of  its  expres- 
sive literalness — "  the  day  of  eiierlastinynes.''''  By  re- 
taining the  word  day,  it  keeps  up  the  epochal  idea,  and 
suggests,  if  Ave  choose  to  take  it,  the  qualifying  or  adjec- 
tive sense  of  the  noun  that  is  in  the  Greek  and  Latin.* 

*  We  should  have  had  all  these  ideas  much  more  vivid  in  our  minds, 
had  our  common  version  followed  in  this  and  similar  places  the  Wicklifi- 
ian  simplicity  of  expression.  That  other  old  idea,  too,  of  time-words  used 
for  the  very  vrorlds  themselves,  so  that  it  may  be  taken  either  way,  and 
with  an  increase  of  sublimity  attending  either  conception,  is  brought  out 
in  this  pure  Saxon  English  with  si!  the  force  and  clearness  of  the  Greek, 
The  reader  may  see  this  in  all  those  places  where  Wickliffe's  translation, 
following  the  Latin, has  world  or  worldis  for  a'tCiv  and  ttiOJVfj,  whilst  the 
common  version  has  the  general  epithets  e'ctnal  and  everlasting.  As  in 
Gal.  i,  .") — "  To  whom  is  worschip  and  glorie  into  worldis  of  worldis  (am- 
vag  TUV  aiijvwv) — Eph.  ii,  7,  "In  the  worldis  abouc  coming" — Col.  i,  26, 
"  Hidden//o  worldis."  So  also  the  Rlieims.  The  other  English  versions 
have  the  singular,  "before  the  world  began,"  notwithstanding  the  Greek 
plural,  and  the  Hebrew  plural  from  which  the  mode  of  expression  is  deriv- 
(;d.  The  translators  did  not  recognize  the  idea  of  time -worlds,  and  so  took 
those  plurals  collectively.  We  have  other  examples — 1  Pet.  iv,  11,  "  Glo- 
rie and  lordschip  unto  the  worldis  of  worldis" — Rev.  iv,  9,  "  That  lyueth 
into  worldis  of  worldis."  The  same  Rev.  xv,  7,  xxii,  5 — "  They  shall  reiga 
forever,  or  forever  more"  say  the  other  versions.    The  Wickliffe  has  iC — 


118  THE   OLD    WICKLIFFE   VERSION. 

But  the  word  day  is  consistent  with  its  absolute  unend- 
ing everlastingness.  And  so  we  are  prepared  to  view 
it  in  this  passage  of  Peter.  Not  only  is  it  applied  in  the 
Scriptures  to  the  great  olams  that  divide  the  chronology 
of  the  created  universe  in  its  cosmical  ongoings,  but  to 
the  whole  that  preceded,  and  to  the  whole  that  may  be 
thought  as  coming  after.  Thus  we  may  reverently  think 
of  three  great  days,  or  greatest  days,  which  may  be 
described  as  the  ante-time  state,  the  kosmos  that  now  is, 
and  the  vj/xs^a  aiwvo^  or  all  that  succeeds  this  world  or 
the  worlds  that  now  are.  Taken  all  together,  they  would 
be  the  ^^  yesterday,  to-day,  and  forever, ^^  of  the  Divine 

"And  thei  schuleu  regne  mto  worldis  of  uwrldix."  But  perhaps  there  is 
110  passage  in  which  this  Old  Enghsh  version  is  more  striking,  or  more  in- 
structive, than  in  its  rendering  of  1  Tim.i,  17 — "  Now  unto  the  King  Eter- 
nal, Immortal,  Invisible,  the  only  wise  God,  be  honor  and  glory  forever." 
This  has,  indeed,  a  grand  sound,  though  having  only  the  general  imageless 
adjective;  but  it  is  not  equal,  either  for  truth  or  effect,  to  the  old  Version 
that  follows  so  closely  the  Latin  and  the  Greek — "Now  unto  the  Kynge 
of  worldis,  undeedli  and  vnuysible,  God  aloone,  be  onoure  and  glorie  into 
worldis  of  woiidis,  Amen."  It  is  the  counterpart  of  Ps.  cxlv,  13 — "Thy 
kingdom  is  a  kingdom  of  all  worldis."  This  kind  of  language  is  the  source 
of  thegrind  expression  in  the  Episcopal  PrayerBook,  '\HO)-ld  wi/kaitt  end." 
Surely  it  is  not  too  much  to  say,  that  if  the  form  and  spirit  of  these  early 
translations  had  been  preserved,  (and  certainly  they  are  nearest  to  the 
original,)  the  mind  of  the  common  reader  would  have  had  something  far 
more  true,  as  well  as  far  more  vivid,  than  the  blank  conceptions  that  are 
given  by  the  current  terms.  One  style  of  language  gives  us  one  world 
with  a  waste  continuit}',  undivided  and  undivisible,  before  and  after  it. 
The  other  fills  them  up  with  v:o>hls  and  worlds  of  worlds  stretching  on  in 
either  direction  as  far  as  the  mind  can  go  towards  the  boundless  comple- 
ment of  the  Divine  Kingdom.  We  surpass  the  readers  of  these  old  Ver- 
sions, and  of  these  old  originals,  in  our  space  conceptions ;  but  how  far 
we  are  behind  them  in  those  of  time,  is  shown  by  the  change  of  language 
and  the  disuse  of  the  old  vivid  forms.  We  may  seek  to  compensate  for 
this  by  rows  of  decimals,  and  frigid  conceits  of  solar  systems  turned  into 
sand-glasses  to  measure  eternity,  but  it  is  all  a  blank  as  compared  witli 
those  mighty  pluralities,  the  aeons  and  olams,  and  icorldis  ofwarldts  of  the 
earlier  mind. 


DAY   OF  THE   ETERNAL   GENERATION.  119 

Existence.     There  would  seem,  then,  good  reason  for 
ranking  this  expression  (2  Pet.  iii,  18,)  in  the  same  class 
with  that  in  Psalm  ii,7 — the  ancient  day  of  the  "  Eternal 
Generation,"  and  the  day  Isaiah  xhii,  13,  where  it  is 
said  "  Before  the  dat/ 1  am  He,"  that  is,  before  the  whole 
cosmical  manifestation.     We  might  regard  these  as  be- 
longing to  a  still  higher  chl-onology  than  the  days  of  cre- 
ation and  the  days  of  prophecy,  but  any  attempt  to  name 
them  would  be  only  a  repetition  of  the  same  language, 
and  a  reduplication  of  the  same  inadequate  conception. 
We  may  be  content  with  the  idea  as  sound  and  Scriptu- 
ral, where  the  conceiving  faculty  utterly  fails  to  present 
it  to  the  sense  or  the  imagination.     There  was  an  ante- 
past  eternity,  before  time  began, "  or  ever  the  earth  or  the 
world  was."     Of  its  mode  of  being  we  can  know  little  or 
nothing ;  of  the  fact  we  may  reverently  inquire  if  we 
guide  our  thoughts,  and  our  imaginations,  by  that  only 
light,  the  interpretation  of  Scripture  soberly  conducted, 
but  with  an  aim  bearing  some  proportion  to  the  acknow- 
ledged divinity  and  consequent  grandeur  of  the  Book. 


120  KBDHEM,   OR  THE  ANTE-TIME   STATE. 


CHAPTER  IV. 


Kedkem  or  the  Ante-time  State — Psalm  lv,  19,  ''He  that  Inha- 
hiteth  Kedhem^^ — Sadducean  Interpreters — Psalm  lxviii, 
"  The  Heaven  of  Henvens  of  Old" — Spiritual  in  Distinc- 
tion from  a  Cabalistical  Sense — Space  Sense — Messianic 
Character  of  the  Psalm — Where  is  Kedhem  1 — Tlie  Ra- 
tionalist—  The  Twenty-four  Hour  Irderpretcr — The  Time- 
less State — The  Question  of  the  Eternity  of  Matter — The 
Absurdity  ifivolved  in  the  very  Inquiry. 

But  what  do  we  mean  by  an  ante-past  eternity,  or  ante- 
time  state,  as  -with  good  Scriptural  authority  it  may  be 
named  ?  This  may  be  called  a  purely  speculative  ques- 
tion. It  is,  however,  one  of  exceeding  interest;  and, 
therefore,  we  would  beg  the  reader's  indulgence  if  we 
devote  a  chapter  to  its  consideration — most  scanty  and 
inadequate  though  it  be.  We  can  not  help  feeling  that 
there  are  allusions  to  it  in  the  Scriptures,  although  in  all 
such  cases  he  who  seeks  nothing  higher  may  find  plausi- 
ble ground  for  being  content  with  a  lower  sense.  Of  such 
ante-past  eternity  there  seems  to  the  writer  a  vivid  re- 
cognition. Psalm  lv,  19,  rendered  in  our  Version  "  He 
Uiat  abideth  of  old."  The  Sadducean  interpreter  may 
take  it  of  some  old  historical  time  upon  the  earth,  some 
forefathers'  day  of  the  Jewish  genealogies,  and  should  he 
be  determined  to  adhere  to  it,  it  would  not  be  easy  to 
refute  him,  or  drive  him  out  of  it.     It  certainly  may 


"HE   THAT   INHABITETH   KEDHEM.".  121 

have  that  sense  if  a  man  chooses  to  see  nothing  higher, 
but  to  others  in  another  state  of  mind  the  Hebrew  suggests 
a  thought  subUme  beyond  all  expression.  It  is  ci*!!^  3»\ 
"  He  that  inhabiteth  Kedhem ;"  mth.  which  we  may 
compare  Isaiah  Ivii,  15  —  "  He  that  inhabiteth  eternity." 
Kedhem  denotes  the  most  ancient  state  of  anything,  or 
rather  that  which  was  before  the  most  ancient  state  of 
anything.  It  would  mean  etymolbgically  the  antiquity, 
not  in  the  sense  of  the  oldest  part,  but  rather  as  the  anterior 
or  the  before  state.  Compare  Prov.  viii,  22,  23,  where  it 
may  be  rendered  "  the  antiquity  before  the  world  was."  So 
here— "Who  inhabiteth  the  antiquity,"— the  ante-mundane 
state  —  the  day  before  the  world  was.  Compare  also 
on^sa  as  spoken  of  the  Logos,  Mich,  v,  1, — "  Whose  out- 
goings are  from  Kedhem," — egressuB  ejus  ah  initio,  a 
diebus  eternitatis.  There  is  something  very  striking  in 
the  whole  expression,  especially  in  the  other  word  3.«i% 
as  applied  to  God  — "  who  sitteth  kedhem."  It  sounds 
very  strange,  and  the  interpretation  may  be  condemned 
as  strangely  literal ;  but  may  we  not  soberly  look  for 
"  wondrous  things,"  when  such  a  term,  and  in  such  a 
connection,  is  apphed  to  Deity  ?*  May  it  not  intimate  to 
us  that  ineffable  divine  repose,  that  transcending  quietude, 
that  preceded  all  worlds,  when  God  sat  alone,  dwelt  alone,, 
in  the  ineffable  glory  of  his  triune  existence.  It  may  be 
said  there  is  something  anthropopathic  in  such  concep- 
tion of  the  word  ;  but  what  can  we  do  ?  In  what  other 

"  The  thought  comes  out  far  more  vividly  in  the  old^ersions.  The  L  XX, 
0  litcf-iX^v  ir^o  Twv  aiojvwv— "  W^o  subsisted  before  the  ages,  or  the 
■worlds,  if  we  take  the  New  Testament  sense  which  we  may  certainly  give 
to  the  word  in  the  Septuagint.  Vulgate— Clui  est  «7;/f  sa;cula.  The  Sy- 
riac  is  clearest  of  them  all—"  who  was  before  the  world,''— a'ahs  DHj?,— - 
and  there  can  be  no  doubt  of  the  sense  in  which  it  employs  the  tenn,  as 
elsewhere,  for  the  world  idea. 

11 


122         THE  rationalist's  interpretation. 

mode  is  the  conception,  or  the  idea,  to  have  a  place  in 
our  minds  ?  The  conception  may  be  anthropopathic, 
yea,  must  be  anthropopathic,  and  yet  the  idea  the  con- 
ception represents  may  be  one  that  transcends  all  philo- 
sophy. 

There  was  certainly  an  ante-mundane  state,  whether 
near  or  remote ;  for  such  terms  are  merely  comparative. 
Their  power  of  affecting  the  mind,  or  producing  religious 
emotion,  depends  on  other  associations.  But  where  was 
Kedh^m  ?  It  is  a  question  w«  may  reverently  ask. 
Certain  commentators  who  call  themselves  sober  or  ra- 
tional, and  who  neither  seek  nor  find  anything  profound 
in  the  Scriptures,  especially  in  the  Old  Testament,  would 
carry  the  word  back,  perhaps,  to  the  period  before  the 
Saul  dynasty,  or,  it  may  be,  to  some  such  respectable 
antiquity  as  the  days  of  Nahshon  the  Prince  of  Judah, 
the  grandfather  of  Boaz,  who  was  the  great-grandfather 
of  David — about  as  far  as  from  the  present  generation  to 
the  days  of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers.  This  to  their  minds 
satisfies  the  language,  '■'•  He  ivho  abideth  of  old,''  or  "He 
who  inhabiteth  Kedhem."  It  does  pretty  well ;  and  is 
a  tolerably  fair  sense,  we  say,  for  those  who  choose  to 
take  it.  But  we  would  desire  to  bear  in  mind  that  it  is 
the  Book  of  the  Eternal  God  we  are  reading,  and  we 
would  remember  the  reproof  Christ  gave  the  Sadducees 
for  their  narrow  yet  plausible  interpretation,  when  they 
found  nothing  but  matter  in  the  Old  Testament,  and  spi- 
ritual nonentity ,^nd  a  few  fleeting  generations  of  misera- 
ble creatures  who  had  not  even  a  dream  of  anything 
beyond  the  dissolution  of  the  body,  and  yet  were  arro- 
gant enough  to  claim  the  undying  One  as  their  God  and 
the  God  of  their  fathers  who  had  long  since  gone  down 


*'the  heaven  of  heavens  of  old."        123 

to  Sheol.  "  Thou  art  our  dwelling  place  in  all  genera- 
tions." This,  as  the  Sadducees  maintained,  was  said  by 
men,  and  of  men,  who  had  long  since  "  been  laid  like 
sheep  in  the  grave,"  where  "  their  beauty,"  their  mortal 
forms,  the  only  real  beauty  that  ever  belonged  to  them, 
''had  been  consuming"  in  their  eternal  "  dwelling  place" 
of  mortality.  So  the  Sadducees  held,  and  they  had  some 
respectable  grounds  for  their  Sadducean  doctrine ;  but, 
Christ  himself  being  witness,  they  were  neither  sound 
nor  profound  interpreters.  There  were  those  in  the 
Psalmist's  day  who  believed  in  the  V'-'fo^^  ai-^jvo^,  the 
''  day  0^  euerlastingnes,^'  and  such  minds  could  readily 
admit  the  thought  of  a  kedhem  or  pre-existent  state  be- 
fore the  day  tvhen  the  world  ivas. 

There  is  another  similar  passage,  Psalm  Ixviii,  34, — 
r=-T;?  ^ttw  ■'tottia  ashV, —  "  To  Him  who  rideth  on  the  jffeay- 
ens  of  Heavens  of  old — the  Heavens  of  Heavens  of  Ked- 
hem.''^ Here,  too,  may  the  word  present  its  radical  idea 
of  antiquity^  or  a  time  or  state  before^  and  yet  in  perfect 
consistency  v/ith  a  gradation  of  senses  (according  to  the 
taste  or  reverence,  or  views  of  inspiration,  or  spiritual 
mindedness  in  the  interpreter,)  until  we  ascend  to  that 
highest  and  oldest  to  which  the  hyperbole  or  upmount- 
ing  form  of  the  expression  would  seem  to  carry  us.  It 
may  thus  be  taken  for  the  old  skies  on  which  God  rode, 
or,  as  the  word  may  be  rendered,  sat  throned,  on  the  de- 
sert !  It  may  refer  to  the  Heaven  of  storms  which  he 
gathered  around  the  awful  peak  of  Sinai.  Either  of 
these  is  a  good  sense,  a  most  important  sense.  It  may 
be  taken  —  preserving,  too,  the  same  old  radical  concep- 
tion oi  antiquity,  or  the  ante-state  —  for  an  old  heavens 
before  the  Mosaic  heavens,  and  belonging  to  the  times 


124  THE   SPIRITUAL   SENSE   OF   SCRIPTURE. 

before  the  earth  was ;  or  it  may  signify  for  us  that  most 
ancient  state  before  there  were  any  mundane  heavens, 
atmospherical,  stellar,  or  nebular,  if  we  may  use  these 
terms  by  way  of  accommodation.  Or  if  we  give  the 
conception  another  form,  (yet  preserving  its  essence)  it 
may  suggest  to  us  degrees  of  heavens  in  what  we  have 
elsewhere  called  the  altitudinal,  or  degree  aspect,  in  dis- 
tinction from  that  of  space  and  time.  It  may  carry  us 
-through  all  these  heavens  until  we  come  to  that  oldest 
Ttimeless  state,  and  that  ineffable  height  which  we  have 
^regarded  as  ultimately  set  forth  in  language  like  this. 
.A  man,  we  say,  may  take  the  lower,  but  why  may  he 
not  also  take  the  higher  sense,  if  it  comes  fairly  out  of 
the  ever  widening  conception,  and  if  it  be  really  the  case 
that  this  book,  we  are  venturing  to  interpret,  is  truly  a 
book  of  God's  thoughts,  as  high  above  our  thoughts  as 
the  heavens  are  high  above  the  earth. 

Such  a  higher  or  spiritual  sense,  is  the  one  taken  by 
a  spiritual  mind  building  on  the  old  fundamental  concep- 
tion. We  may  freely  call  it  the  spiritual  sense  of  Scrip- 
ture, without  fear  of  its  involving  us  in  any  cabalistical 
fancies ;  for  it  is  the  great  difference  between  it  and  any 
cabalistical  or  Swedenborgian  spiritual  sense,  that  the 
latter  has  no  such  fundamental  conception  capable  of  be- 
ing fixed  by  philology,  but  in  the  foundation  as  in  the 
superstructure  is  wholly  arbitrary,  built  on  a  supposed 
second  lexical  revelation,  or  "  dictionary  of  correspon- 
dences," to  which  it  is  not  even  pretended  that  the 
rules  of  philology  have  any  theoretical  or  practical  appli- 
cation. This  cabahstical  or  fancied  spiritual  sense,  too, 
is  ever  dry ;  it  has  no  more  warmth  than  light ;  it  has 
as  little  to  do  with  feeling  as  with  the  intellect ;  whereas 


THE   SPIRITUAL   SENSE   OF   SCRIPTURE.  125 

the  other  is  the  rational  expansion  of  the  "  spiritual 
mind,"  under  the  influence  of  pious  emotion  which  we 
may  regard  as  giving  breath  to  the  thought,  \^hilst  the 
understanding  remains  ever  anchored  on  that  ground 
idea  which  is  the  same  for  all.  It  is  the  same,  in  this 
respect,  with  the  Old  Testament  as  with  the  New.  Be- 
ing 7Pap>3  (JsiVvsurfToSj  "  inspired  Scripture,"  it  must  be 
capable  of  the  same  expansion  from  lower  to  higher  de- 
grees of  the  same  fundamental  thought.  There  are 
those  who  contend  earnestly  and  ably  for  it,  as  a  true 
part  of  the  sacred  canon,  and  yet  somehow  adopt  a  view 
which  renders  the  position  in  a  measure  worthless,  even 
after  such  great  pains  to  establish  it.  The  course  taken 
by  the  "  liberal"  commentator  is  certainly  more  logical, 
if  not  so  pious.  If  it  is  God's  inspiration  it  must  be  every 
where  full  of  life  —  "  the  Divine  breath,"  to  use  the  words 
of  M.  Guizot,  "  must  everywhere  animate"  it.  The 
thoughtful  reader  must  especially  feel  this  when  he 
fixes  his  mind  on  the  sublime  terms  of  which  we  now  are 
treating.  But  there  are  others  every  where  that  expand 
themselves,  and  legitimately  expand  themselves,  in  the 
same  ever  widening,  ever  ascending  manner.  Take,  for 
example,  such  words  as  life,  salvation,  righteousness. 
It  may  be  the  life  of  the  body  when  the  Psalmist  says, 
"  Thy  favor  is  life,"  but  what  prevents  its  being  taken 
for  the  Ufe  of  the  soul  ?  "  Thou  wilt  show  me  the  path 
of  life."  It  may  mean  here  deliverance  from  temporal 
death ;  the  rationalist  has  good  grounds  for  such  an  inter- 
pretation, but  how  much  higher  ground  has  the  spiritual 
mind  for  interpreting  it  of  the  life  of  the  spirit  in  this 
world,  or  for  the  life  of  the  spirit  as  the  spirit  is  the  life 
of  the  body — and  even  for  carrying  it  out  to  the  eternal 

ir 


126  ASCENDING   SENSES. 

life  in  the  olamic  kingdom  of  God.  Salvation  may  mean, 
—  it  does  mean, —  temporal  deliverance,  but  what  shall 
forbid  its  being  understood  in  a  true,  yea  a  truer  sense, 
of  soul  health,  the  true  (fur-tj^ia  even  here,  and  the  ever- 
lasting salvation  both  from  Satan  and  from  sin,  from  con- 
demnation and  from  depravity,  when  Christ  shall  have 
put  all  enemies  under  his  feet.  Right  or  righteousness 
may  be  the  vindication  of  a  temporal  justice,  and  so  it 
may  be,  and  truly  is,  a  pardon,  nay,  more,  an  absolute 
robe  of  righteousness  which  shall  fit  one  to  appear  in  the 
very  heaven  of  heavens.  All  these  senses  flow  out  of 
the  words,  and  to  the  mind  that  can  receive  them  are  as 
real  in  themselves,  and  as  truly  the  meaning,  as  any 
lower  significance  that  may  be  discovered  by  the  dry  light 
either  of  mysticism  or  neology.  Those  who  choose  may 
feed  on  the  husks  and  throw  away  the  fruit ;  for  the  lower 
senses  are  really  there,  and  the  mind  that  is  satisfied 
with  them  may  rest  in  them  without  seeking  anything 
higher  or  more  free.* 

*  111  close  connection  with  this  there  is,  in  the  next  verse,  another  ex- 
pression that  invites  comment, — " Ascribe  ye  power  unto  C od  Kh-osc  glory 
ii  upon  Israel,  and  his  strength  in  the  skies."  The  word  D''j?hW  is  ren. 
dered  in  oar  version  the  clouds;  but  it  is  more  usually  a  word  for  the  vi- 
)>ible  or  Space  "  heavens."  The  primary  sense  of  the  root  is  to  make  thin, 
attenuate,  and  hence  to  expand.  Hence  it  is  applied  to  the  DBtlier,  or  the 
substance  that  was  regarded  as  filling  all  space,  and  which,  on  the  same 
■etymological  ground,  is  called  by  Aristotle  »}  "kBitro^kZ^vig  xai  9Xoyw(5rjff 
ou(f»a.  Thus  etymologically  regarded,  it  would  be  equivalent  to  the  clae- 
•ical  expressiCin  in  summo  cetkere,  or  the  frequent  Homeric  phrase  at6i^i 
vaiuv.  The  word  is  also  used  for  dust  (Isaiah  xl,  15,)  from  the  radical 
sense  of  attenuation,  Jijieness  or  rarity ;  and  hence,  ns  some  think,  is  applied 
to  the  clouds,  either  from  their  rarity,  or  from  the  fancied  resemblance 
which  the  dark  nimbus,  or  thunder-cloud,  may  be  supposed  to  bear  to 
a  rolling  bank  of  dust.  As  iu  that  sublime  passage,  Nahum  i,  3, — "His 
way   is   in  the  whirlwind  and  the  tempest,  and  the  clouds  are  the  dust 


SPACE-SENSE   OF   KEDHEM.  127 

The  word  Kedhem,  it  must  not  be  overlooked,  has  a 
space  as  well  as  a  time  sense ;  but  the  former  would 
seem  to  come  naturally  from  the  latter.  It  means  the 
East,  the  ould  coiaitrie,  the  fatherland,  where  dwelt 
"  the  men  of  ^ore,"  the  men  who  were  before  us.  So 
afterwards  Phoenicia  was  Kedhem  to  Greece,  and  hence 
they  said  Kadmus,  or  the  Eastern  man,  brought  to  them 
the  letters  of  the  alphabet.  Thus  it  never  loses  its  time 
idea  of  beforeness,  if  we  may  use  such  a  term,  or  die 
vorzeit.  Both  the  LXX  and  Syriac  versions  have  adopt- 
ed this  space  sense  in  the  passage.  They  render — 
"  Who  ascendeth  upon  the  heaven  of  heavens  from  the 
JEast,''^  so  as  to  correspond  to  the  translation  of  v.  5, 
where,  instead  of  our  rendering,  "  who  rideth  on  the 
heavens,"  or  the  more  correct  translation,  "  who  rideth 
on  the  desert,"  they  have,  "  who  ascendeth  on  the  West.^^ 
But  the  LXX  and  Syriac  version  of  v.  33  will  not  suit 
the  accompanying  expression  ^^  heaven  ofheavens,^^  which 
must  evidently  refer  to  degree  either  of  altitude  or  time. 

Should  any  feel  a  misgiving  at  such  an  expansion  of 
these  phrases,  let  it  be  borne  in  mind  that  this  Psalm  is 
distinctly  quoted  by  the  Apostle,  Eph.  iv,  10,  as  one  of 
the  Messianic  prophecies,  and,  therefore,  there  must  be  a 
higher  and  holier  sense  to  it.  Let "  rationalism,"  with  all 
its  learning,  go  to  the  winds ;  we  must  hold  to  this,  or  give 

of  His  feet" — although  in  this  place  a  different  word  is  used.  In  its  primary 
sense,  as  well  as  in  its  applications,  it  resembles  very  much  an  Arabic 
word  habaon,  signifying  atoms,  or  the[fiue  particles  of  dust  that  float  in  the 
air,  and  of  which  kind  of  "  star  dust"  the  Mohammedan  Doctors  say  God 
made  the  world.  The  Hebrew  term  arrests  our  attention  here,  because 
it  seems  to  give  us  the  space  aspect  of  God's  power,  or  kingdom,  in  dis- 
tinction from  the  time  and  height  aspect.  So  Gesenius  on  this  word — De- 
tignat  ccElum  ad  expansione  ut  DifiB  spatia  alia. 


128  THE  MESSIANIC   PSALMS. 

up  the  wliole  Scriptures  ;  and  the  more  a  man  heartily 
studies  them,  the  more  he  "will  see  that  such  a  holding  is 
not  a  mere  blind  faith  of  necessity,  but  one  which  com- 
mands (not  asks  in  aid)  the  firmest  assent  of  all  that  is 
highest  in  his  spiritual  perceptions.  But  "  rationalism" 
is  more  consistent  than  that  Biblical  criticism  among  us 
which  so  bravely  proves  certain  Psalms  to  be  Messianic, 
and  then  is  perfectly  content  ■with  such  a  barren  work, 
making  no  use  of  the  position  after  all,  seeing  no  more  in 
the  Scripture,  sometimes  even  less,  than  the  rationahst 
himself,  and  perhaps  (after  having  thus  saved  its  evan- 
gelical credit)  showing  its  learning  and  its  hardihood  by 
going  to  an  extreme  of  frigidity  of  which  the  more  spirit- 
ual German  mind  would  be  ashamed. 

This  sixty-eighth  Psalm  describes  a  triumphant  pro- 
cession of  the  theocratic  Israel,  and  a  transfer  of  the  ark 
into  its  Holy  Place.  But  it  also  has  reference  to  a  higher 
Israel,  and  a  mightier  Conqueror,  who  has  entered  into 
the  highest  and  holiest  Heavens.  "  Wherefore  he  saith, 
He  hath  led  captivity  captive.  He  hath  ascendeth  up  on 
high,/<r<r  above  all  heavens,  that  he  might  fill  all  things." 
Why  should  we  be  simply  content  with  acknowledging 
the  Psalm  to  be  Messianic,  and  yet  give  it  no  propor- 
tionate width  and  height  of  interpretation.  Let  us  for  a 
moment  see  what  is  involved  in  the  position.  If  it  be  a 
Messianic  Psalm,  then  it  refers  to  the  ii^cjtotoxoj,  the 
same  who  is  said.  Psalm  ex,  to  have  been  "  before  the 
birth  of  the  morning,"  who  is  called  by  Paul  the  Anrad- 
ya.<fixa,  or  First  Out-beaming, —  that  manifestation  of  the 
Divine  which  preceded  all  physical  creation.  "  Who  is 
it  that  descended  but  He  who  ascended  up  above  all 
heavens, ^^  to  that  timeless  "  glory  which  He  had  with  the 


VIEW   OF   VENEMA.  129 

Father  hefore  the  world  was^  Our  argument  is  very 
simple  and  very  brief.  If  the  Psalm  refers  at  all  to 
this  higher  Conqueror,  and  this  higher  victory,  then  may 
the  time  words  applied  to  him  swell  out  to  their  higher, 
yea,  their  highest  dimensions.  If,  however,  the  neolo- 
gist  is  content  with  the  lower  meaning,  no  objection  need 
be  taken  to  his  philology. 

The  authority  of  the  Apostle  is  sufficient  for  styling 
this  Lxviiith  Psalm  Messianic ;  but  the  thoughtful  reader 
must  see,  on  the  very  literal  face  of  it,  the  evidence  of 
the  greater  triumph  and  the  higher  heavens.  Ever 
as  the  triumphal  song  advances  there  is  a  rapturous 
swell,  an  uplifting  higher  and  higher,  until  it  becomes 
a  gloria  in  excelsis,  a  Halleluiah  hamromim,  a  Hosanna 
in  the  highest.  How  it  continually  ascends  from  the 
lower  to  the  upper  spheres  !  He  who  rode  on  the  slcies 
of  the  desert,  who  came  down  on  Mount  Sinai  with 
twice  ten  thousand  angels,  who  ascended  into  the  hea- 
vens leading  captivity  captive  —  He  it  is  who  ascended 
far  above  all  visible,  all  conceivable  worlds,  and  sitteth 
throned  in  the  Heaven  of  Heavens  of  old.* 

Similar  to  this  is  the  view  of  Venema,  the  soberest  of 
that  sober  race  of  Dutch  commentators.  We  always 
feel  strong  in  quoting  this  profoundly  learned  writer. 
In  all  that  is  substantial  in  Oriental  scholarship  he  was 

*  The  sense  of  7^iding  given  to  the  verb  ab"!,  is,  in  fact,  a  noun  sense, 
from  the  noun  signifying  chariot,  as  this  is  from  the  older  architectural 
sense  of  the' root  we  find  in  the  Syriac  and  Arabic.  The  primary  idea  is 
that  oipuUing  one  thing  upon  another,  so  as  to  hold  it  in  its  place — impo- 
vcnR — snpcrhnponcns.  Hence,  in  the  Syriac  version  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, it  is  applied  to  the  compact  joining  of  the  spiritual  temple,  Eph.  ii,20, 
Col.  ii,  19.  According  to  this  view,  the  imagerj^  would  represent  God  as 
throned  upon  the  Heaven  of  Heavens  of  Kedhem,  thus  giving  the  idea  of 
permanence  and  stability,  rather  than  motion. 


130   EMOTIONAL   AND   MATHEMATICAL   CONCEPTION. 

the  equal  of  the  modern  Germans,  while  he  was  far  be- 
yond them  in  what  may  be  called  Biblical  unction,  or 
the  power  of  discerning  profound  ideas  in  the  Scriptures. 
In  commenting  on  this  remarkable  expression,  he  says : 
Had  it  been  the  heaven  of  old,  in  the  singular,  it  might 
have  been  referred  to  the  heaven  of  the  Mosaic  creation, 
or  to  Sinai  and  Zion,  those  terrfie  sublimioria  which  were 
to  the  Jews  as  Olympus  to  the  Greeks  ;  but  as  it  stands, 
in  the  plural,  it  must  have  the  older  and  all  transcend- 
ing sense  —  "  Quia  ipse  nunc  in  supremo  ccelo,  non  sicut 
antea  in  coelo  inferiore  et  supra  terram  in  loco  sublimi 
residet,  sid  in  ccelis  coelorum  antiquorum.^^  And  again, 
— "  Sed  nunc  Deus  adpactus  dicitur  in  ccclo  coelorum 
nnte-rioritatis :  adeoque  s^ipra  ccelos  illos  residens,  in 
loco  sublimissimo,  purissimo,  et  summaj  glorije  ac  tran- 
quillitatis,  in  sede  quae  respectu  ccelorum  inferiorum  est 
et  ipsa  et  dici  potest  coelum.  Plane  quemadmodum 
Eph.  iv,  10,  Christus  legitur  adscendisse  supra  omnes 
ccelos  :  et  Heb.  vii,  26,  suhlimior  coelisf actus,  et  iv,  14, 
pertransiisse  coclos. 

There  is  something  inexpressibly  sublime  in  this 
thought  of  Heavens  rising  in  ever  mounting  stories  one 
above  the  other.  We  have  said,  that  while  the  time 
conceptions  of  the  ancient  mind  surpassed  those  of  the 
modern,  its  space  conceptions  fell  short.  But  the  latter 
remark  needs  qualification.  We  may  distinguish  two 
kinds  of  space  conception,  the  emotional,  and  the  mathe- 
matical. Of  the  first  kind,  are  the  ideas  and  images  of 
the  Scriptures ;  to  the  latter  belong  the  numerical  esti- 
mates of  modern  science.  In  Psalm  cxiii,  5,  God  is  re- 
presented as  having  his  throne  so  high  that  he  looketh 
down  upon  the  Heavens  themselves  as  into  a  depth  im- 


ASTRONOMY   DOES   NOT  MAKE   MEN   PIOUS.        131 

mensely  below.  High  as  are  our  visible  heavens,  there 
is  a  loftier  dome  as  far  above  them  as  they  are  above  the 
earth,  and  so  on,  Heaven  above  Heaven,  as  far  as  the 
imagination  can  mount.  But  what  is  all  this,  some  may 
say,  to  the  calculations  of  modern  science  ?  What  are 
these  conceptions  of  apparently  vaulted  domes  thus  rising 
above  each  other,  to  the  distances  reached  by  the  calcu- 
lations of  Herschell  and  Leverrier  ?  We  can  not  give 
the  mathematical  ratio ;  but  if  we  may  judge  of  the 
real  magnitude  of  the  conception  by  its  emotional  power, 
the  latter  bears  no  comparison  to  the  former.  We  rest 
the  opinion,  too,  on  the  most  undeniable  facts.  The 
scientific  estimate  has  ever  been  cold,  emotionless,  pro- 
ductive of  the  feeblest  reUgious  influence.  Pious  men — 
pious  from  other  causes — have  endeavored  sometimes  to 
extract  from  them  their  pious  uses  ;  but  some  of  the 
greatest  names  connected  with  such  mere  numerical  cal- 
culations have  belonged  to  men  who  have  manifested  but 
little  fear  of  God,  but  little  reverence  even  for  the  true 
greatness  of  the  universe.  The  fact,  we  say,  is  undeniable. 
Let  the  psychologist,  or  the  liistorian  of  philosophy,  account 
for  it  as  he  may.  Sines,  cosines,  tangents,  and  loga- 
rithms, ever  so  powerfully  applied  to  the  cosmical  distan- 
ces, will  not  make  men  religious,  they  will  not  keep  them 
such.  Neither  has  the  telescope  any  more  converting 
power.  Atheists,  or  what  is  not  much  better,  mere  sci- 
entific theists,  have  looked  through  it  and  remained  athe- 
ists and  scientific  theists  still.  But  what  good,  it  may 
be  said,  can  come  out  of  fiction  I  One  of  these  may  be 
called  a  false  conception  which  science  has  exploded. 
True — but  this  image,  though  false,  still  represents  the 
most  truthful  of  ideas.     It  is  that  of  the  ever  ascending 


132      "the  knowledge  that  puffeth  up." 

glory  of  God,  of  which  time  worlds  and  space  worlds  are 
both  but  the  visible  or  conceptual  manifestations.  The 
scientific  estimate,  on  the  other  hand — as  one  of  them 
of  highest  note  has  impiously  said  —  "represents  the 
glory  of  the  astronomer."  The  heavens  are  his  diagram, 
the  stars  his  figured  points.  It  is  most  frequently  "  a 
knowledge  that  puffeth  up,"  instead  of  making  men  de- 
vout, and  hence  in  proportion  to  its  scientific  accuracy, 
is  oftentimes  the  enormity  of  its  spiritual  falsehood. 
Here  we  find  the  explanation  of  the  fact  so  strange,  yet 
so  susceptible  of  proof,  that  men  who  thought  the  skies 
came  down  upon  the  mountain  top,  have  had  thoughts  of 
God  so  much  greater  than  were  ever  generated  in  the 
proceedings  of  academies  or  the  discoveries  of  science. 
David  and  Pythagoras  have,  in  this  way,  had  a  higher 
conception  of  the  cosmos  and  of  the  divine  glory  in  it, 
than  men  who  have  calculated  eclipses,  made  tables  of 
the  planets's  motions,  or  spent  their  lives  in  astrono- 
mical observatories.* 

*Tbe  force  and  majesty  of  such  sublime  Bible  images  are  at  once  im- 
paired, whenever  we  attempt  to  give  them  a  scientific  interpretation,  or 
connect  them  with  any  scientific  notions.  The  thought  is  fettered,  com- 
promised, restrained  to  a  view  which  after-science  may  show  to  be  inade- 
quate, and  kept  within  a  sphei-e  where  the  petty  scientific  interest  is  pre- 
dominant at  the  expense  of  the  higher  and  the  emotional.  "We  may  cite, 
as  a  striking  example  of  this  eifect,  Mr.  Lord's  interpretation  of  Rev.  xx, 
llj — "  And  I  saw  a  great  white  throne,  and  Him  that  sat  thereon,  from 
whose  face  the  earth  and  tliz  heavens  fled  aicay,and  noplace  was  found  for 
them."  There  is  a  sublime  here  that  nothing,  even  in  Scripture,  surpasses. 
Creation  would  hide  from  the  Holy  Presence,  but  finds  no  place  where  it  is 
not.  Who  can  add  to  this '!  Who  can  make  it  more  clear  by  any  scientific 
filling  up — who  can  increase  its  eflect  by  any  rhetorical  or  hermeneutical 
illustration?  The  right-minded  reader  must  feel  that  all  science  here  is  out 
of  place,  and  most  especially  a  science  which  must  have  been  unknown  to 
the  writer.  Whatever  may  be  its  pretensions,  it  is  too  small  a  thing,  (to 
say  nothing  of  its  imperfection  and  inadequacy,)  to  be  allowed  any  weight, 


WHERE    WAS   KEDHEM  ?  133 

We  are  dwelling  too  long  on  the  spatial  view.  It  is 
the  time  aspect  of  these  cosmical  phrases  with  which  we 
are  chiefly  here  concerned,  and  especially  the  fair  mean- 
ing of  the  term  so  expressive  of  the  most  remote  anti- 
quity. Bat  where,  then,  was  Kedhem,  the  oldest  Ked- 
hem  ?  In  what  earliest  principium  of  time,  or  rather,  if 
we  follow  out  the  thought,  in  what  unknown,  inconceiv- 
able, yet  faith-apprehended  state  of  being,  of  which  we 
are  compelled  to  think  as  of  something  that  was  ere  time 
began  or  any  of  those  finite  acts  and  finite  thoughts  of 
finite  beings,  by  whose  successions  alone  either  time  or 
chronology  can  be  conceived  of  as  having  any  existence  ? 
We  have  alluded  to  the  rationaUst's  idea  of  Kedhem. 
Mr.  Lord  would  go  a  little  beyond  this.  He  would 
carry  it  back  to  a  date  about  three  thousand  years  before 
the  Psalmist,  and  nearly  six  thousand  years,  perhaps, 
from  our  own  time.     Here  he  finds  not  only  a  young 

and  any  place,  in  the  awful  picture.  The  splendor  of  its  sublimity  pales  at 
ouco  when  we  begin  to  talk  of  orbits,  and  aphelia,  and  the  statistics  of  the 
solar  system.  But  lot  us  hear  Jlr.  Lokd's  interpretation.  "  The  flight  of 
the  earth  from  the  presence  of  the  Judge,  indicates  that  the  scene  of  the 
judgment  was  at  a  distance  from  its  orbit.  In  other  visions  it  had  been 
exhibited  as  stationary  in  order  that  the  symbolic  agents  might  exert  their 
agency  in  the  Apostle's  sight.  But  no  such  reason  remained  for  its  con 
tinued  presence,  and  its  Jlisrhf  accordingly,  and  that  of  the  planets,  was  that 
doubtless,  of  their  real  motion  around  their  orbits.  That  no  place  was 
faund  for  them,  simply  denotes,  tliercf ore,  that  they  continued  in  motion." 
Think,  for  a  moment,  of  the  language  thus  interpreted — From  whose  face  the 
earth  and  the  heavens  fled  away.  This  means  the  planetary  motions  in  their 
orbits.  And  tliere  was  found  no  place  for  them — This  means  that  "  they 
continoed  in  motion."  Such  is  the  interpretation  he  would  give  of  the 
Greek  £(piij/f — they  kept  moving  on,  in  exact  obedience  to  the  laws  of  cen- 
trifugal and  centripetal  forces!  We  would  indulge  in  no  disparaging  re 
marks  on  Mr.  Lord's  scientific  view  of  this  remarkable  passage.  It  \» 
euBBcient  to  present  it  to  the  consideration  o*"  any  thoughtful  reader  who- 
can  feel  the  inexpressible  sublimity  of  the  Scriptures. 

12 


134   SIX  THOUSAND  YEARS  AND  SIX  THOUSAND  DAYS. 

Tellus  but  a  young  Kosmos  new  created,  or  rather,  just 
brought  from  absolute  nonentity.  To  this  six  thousand 
years,  or  thereabouts,  add  six  solar  days,  of  twenty-four 
hours  each,  and  all  is  gone  ;  earth,  sun  and  stars  are  7iot, 
in  any  sense  —  not  even  an  idea  of  them,  or  law,  or  force 
from  which  they  might  arise,  or  any  "  unseen  things" 
from  which  they  might  be  created.  Matter  has  yet  no 
being,  the  hyle  or  mother  of  matter  is  not  yet  born,  or, 
if  we  may  not  allude  to  such  a  dangerous  "  Platonic  con- 
ceit," there  is  not  even  an  embryo  existence  of  the 
"  highest  (or  most  elemental)  part  of  the  dust  of  the 
world.'''  Even  the  light  has  not  yet  had  its  birth.  It 
has  not  yet,  in  any  part  of  the  universe,  commenced  that 
long  journey  of  which  the  books  tell  us,  as  requiring  mill- 
ions of  years  to  reach  our  own  planet.  There  is  no  light 
anywhere  ;  for  there  is  no  outward  divine  glory  to  be  re- 
vealed, and  no  kosmos  to  reveal  it  to.  This  "  robe  of 
Deity"  is  still  unwoven,  and  God  has  not  yet  began  to 
"  dwell  in  light  inapproachable  and  full  of  glory."  Angels 
and  Archangels,  Thrones,  Dominions,  Principalities  and 
Powers,  yea,  all  the  celestial  hosts  are  yet  nonentities ; 
for  all  this  results  if  such  be  the  true  date  of  the  begin- 
ning mentioned  by  Moses,  and  that  beginning  is  the  great 
principium,  with  nothing  before  it  but  the  very  being  of 
the  Divine  or  uncreated  essence.  On  such  a  view  of 
dates,  we  must  look  for  the  evidence  of  such  prior  exist- 
ences alone  in  Milton ;  we  search  in  vain  for  it  in  the 
Scriptures. 

Such  an  estimate  of  times  may  be  perfectly  consistent 
with  piety.  It  may  be  perfectly  consistent  with  sublime 
views  of  Deity.     We  find  no  fault  with  it  on  that  account. 


THE   IDEA    NOT   ABSURD,    BUT   UNSCRIPTURAL.     135 

As  well  six  thousand  years  ago,  as  six  million  ages. 
Since  tlie  world,  regarded  as  all  that  is  not  God,  mus^ 
have  had  a  beginning,  an  absolute  beginning,  a  precise 
beginning  of  a  beginning,  then  it  would  be,  at  a  certain 
date  after  that  absolute  beginning,  just  six  thousand  years 
and  six  days  old,  and  why  may  not  that  be  our  own  ter- 
restrial date  ?  No  reason  to  the  contrary  could  be 
given  if  the  Bible  had  clearly  revealed  it.  Science 
might  raise  some  objections  to  trouble  us,  but  science 
has  ere  this  dealt  in  phantoms.  The  answer  then  is, 
We  do  not  find  the  evidence  of  it  in  the  Scriptures. 
We  find  things  that  look  the  other  Avay,  and  which,  the 
more  we  study  them,  assume  more  and  more  the  oppo- 
site aspect.  Not  that  the  Scriptural  writers  were  ambi- 
tious to  give  us  cosmical  knowledge,  but  the  manner  in 
which  they  speak  of  the  great  tim.es  of  God's  kingdom  — 
their  language  of  olams  and  clams  of  olams,  of  ages  and 
ages  of  ages,  of  eternities  in  the  plural,  of  great  chrono- 
logical divisions  in  the  past  and  future,  instead  of  blank 
continuances  after  the  style  of  much  modern  thought  — 
their  use  of  these  plurahties  and  these  swelling  redupli- 
cations in  a  manner  inconsistent  with  the  narrow  bounds 
into  which  the  historical  times  of  our  planet  would  cramp 
them  —  all  these  produce  strongly  the  conviction  that 
the  Bible  does  not  represent  our  world,  or  olam,  as  an 
isolated  existence  with  a  cosmical  blank  before  and  after, 
but  as  connected  with  an  ongoing  series  of  ages  stretch- 
ing immeasurably  back  as  they  reach  onward  to  a  dis- 
tance immeasurably  future. 

But  where  is  Khedem  then  ?     Some  of  his  clerical 
friends,  alarmed  at  the  rebuke  received  at  the  same  time 


136        BUGBEAR   OF   THE   ETERNITY   OF  MATTER. 

from  orthodoxy  and  science,  have  manifested  some  con- 
cern for  the  writev's  sanity.  There  is  a  bugbear  which 
haunts  their  minds  on  his  account.  It  is  the  frightful 
idea  of  the  eternity  of  matter.  Hardly  any  heresy  has 
such  terrors  for  them  as  that.  A  plurality  of  Adams,  or 
the  dual  "  theology  of  the  intellect  and  the  affections,"  or 
■even  a  development  theory  of  Christianity,  would  not  be 
half  so  frightful.  Do  you  not,  they  ask,  teach,  or,  at  least, 
;are  you  not  in  danger  of  teaching,  the  eternity  of  matter  ? 
We  would  set  this  friendly  solicitude  at  rest,  once  for  all. 
'^There  are  two  sides  to  this  matter,  or  this  question  of 
the  eternity  of  the  universe.  One  is  clear,  positive,  and 
■capable  of  a  most  clear  and  positive  statement.  Let  us 
state  then,  very  sincerely,  our  firm  belief  that  this  world, 
kosmos,  or  universe,  (using  the  terms  for  all  dynamical 
■existence  that  is  not  God,)  has  a  certain  finite  age,  as 
certain  and  as  finite,  although  unknown,  as  the  known 
age  of  an  individual  man  or  an  individual  tree.     That  is, 

—  there  is  an  exact  number  of  minutes  (by  which  is 
meant  a  measure  of  time  determined  by  a  certain  known 
space,  or  pendulum  of  a  certain  known  length)  since  this 
world,  kosmos,  or  universe  as  above  defined,  or  any  seed, 
■or  embr3^o,  or  element  of  it,  began  to  be.  This  number 
^f  minutes  is  theoretically,  if  not  practically,  assignable, 

—  that  is,  it  is  a  finite  number  capable  of  being  expressed 
In  a  certain  extent  of  decimals,  if  we  had  space  or  room 
to  put  such  decimals,  cither  in  our  own  known  world,  or 
within  the  bounds  of  any  distance'  that  has  been  reached 
by  the  highest  lens  of  Lord  Rosse's  telescope.  We  hope 
the  answer  is  clear  and  definite,  and  that  we  shall  be  re- 
lieved, hereafter,  of  the  odious  heretical  charge,  and  of 
the  consequent  odium  theologicum  which  a  very  pious 


THE  OTEER  SIDE  OF  THE  MATTER.      137 

science   has   so   scientifically,    and   so   magnanimously 
.labored  to  fix  upon  us. 

But  now  there  is  another  side  of  the  matter.  Let  us 
see  what  definite  ideas,  or  if  there  are  any  definite  ideas, 
we  can  get  about  it.  We  travel  up  this  road  very  easily ; 
for  ten  billion  years  are  as  easily  passed  over  as  ten  se- 
conds ;  and  so  we  go  back,  back,  in  our  conceptions, 
without  any  difficulty,  till  we  come  to  that  point  at  the 
head  of  all  undivine  being  which  we  term  the  beginning. 
On  this  side  lies  all  created  SCvaixig^  (whether  matter,  or 
force,  or  each  as  inseparable  from  the  other,)  with  all 
successions  of  acts  ov  facts,  and  all  created  spiritualities, 
with  all  successions  of  thou  (/Ids  and  ideas.  In  other 
words,  we  have  got  to  the  point  beyond  which  time  is 
inconceivable,  unless  we  suppose  that  God's  thoughts 
are  as  our  thoughts,  which  the  Bible  tells  us  expressly 
they  are  not.  Well,  what  then  ?  If  there  was  no  time 
before  this,  then  this  was  the  beginning  of  time.  Hence, 
there  was  no  time  when  the  universe  was  not.  This  may 
have  a  very  bad  look  to  some,  and  we  would  not  press 
it  upon  the  nervous  weakness  of  some  men's  orthodoxy ; 
but  yet  it  is  a  position  which  need  not  occasion  much 
anxiety  whilst  we  hold  fast  to  the  other.  We  are  safe 
as  long  as  we  do  not  drag  the  anchor  that  is  fixed  sure 
and  steadfast  in  the  first  and  firmer  ground.  No  one 
need  be  unduly  alarmed  at  what  they  might  call  a  peril-- 
ous  ascent ;  it  will  ever  be  easy  to  get  safely  down  with 
such  a  foothold  as  was  first  secured  in  the  exact  nume- 
rical age  of  the  world  as  seen  from  our  own  or  the  finite 
side.  But  why,  then,  stop  at  all  in  the  finite  ?  We 
can  only  say  it  is  because  we  can  not  help  ourselves. 
We  can  not  get  out  of  the  laws  of  our  own  thinking,  even 

12* 


138       A    WORLD  ABOVE  OUR  THINKING. 

though  thej  give  us  certain  evidence  that  there  is  some- 
thing above  those  laws,  and  that  it  must  be  inconceiva- 
bly more  glorious  than  anything  they  can  directly  think 
or  conceive.  There  is  certainly  great  gain  in  this.  Even 
though  it  be  an  unknown  and  unthought  world,  it  is  much 
to  be  certain  of  its  existence  ;  —  it  is  much  that  our  finite 
powers  can  reach  the  point  that  assures  us  of  the  necessity 
of  the  infinite,  of  that  which  not  only  "  eye  hath  not  seen, 
nor  ear  heard,  but  which  it  hath  not  entered,  and  can  not 
enter,  into  the  mind  to  think  or  conceive."  Still,  it  may 
be  asked  —  What  do  you  mean  by  the  timeless  state? 
We  answer :  We  have  no  conception,  no  thought,  no 
idea  of  it  in  its  mode  of  being,  and  yet  some  idea  of  it  as 
a  glorious  reality  inseparably  connected  with  the  divine 
as  distinguished  from  finite  minds.  It  is  the  ante-time, 
as  well  as  ante-mundane  state,  when  God  inhabited  Ked- 
hem,  dwelling  alone,  and  yet  not  alone,  in  the  glory  of  his 
triune  existence.  But  may  not  the  question  be  turned 
against  the  interrogator  ?  What  do  ^oii  mean  when  j^ou 
^ay  there  was  an  eternity  of  time  before  this  principiura 
of  the  universe  ?  What  succession  of  facts  existed  before 
this, — what  succession  of  thoughts?  Your  conceptions 
of  it  are  a  blank.  When  you  attempt  to  fill  them  up, 
it  is  only  the  poor  cheat  of  figuring  over  and  over  again 
our  successions,  our  years,  our  chronology, —  out  of  which 
we  can  not  think, —  and  carrying  them  out  of  cosmical 
time  into  what  you  are  pleased  to  call  a  past  eternal  time 
before  the  world  began.  Such  objections,  with  all  possi- 
ble respect  for  their  makers  be  it  said,  are  not  only  un- 
"^ound,  but  senseless.  The  man  who  talks  of  matter,  or 
the  material  universe,  as  eternal,  meaning  thereby  co- 
eval, co-existent,  and,  therefore,  co-essential  with  God, 


"  WHO   CAN   BY   THINKING   FIND   OUT   GOD  ?"     139 

talks  impiously.  The  man  -".Yho  affirms  that  time  was  be- 
fore any  cosmical,  or  undivine  existence, —  employing  the 
term  in  the  usual  and  only  conceivable  sense  of  finite 
divisible  duration,  measured  by  succession  of  events  in 
an  outward  finite  physical,  or  by  succession  of  thoughts 
in  an  inward  finite  spiritual  world  —  that  man  talks,  not 
only  impiously,  but  ignorantly,  absurdly.  His  only  de- 
fence against  profanity  lies  in  the  fact  that  he  knows  not 
what  he  means.  He  has  good  sonorous  words,  indeed, 
but  all  soul,  whether  of  sense,  conception,  or  idea,  is 
wanting  there.  Let  us  cease  our  prattling.  What  can 
such  worms  as  we  are  know  about  the  mode  of  existence 
of  the  Infinite,  or  what  is  possible  for  the  Infinite,  or 
what  he  ought  to  be  ?  The  writer  is  willing  to  take  the 
rebuke  to  himself.  Neither  of  us  know  what  we  are 
talking  about ;  yet  still  it  may  be  maintained,  that  he  is 
most  reverent  who  contents  himself  with  negations  or  ex- 
hausting positions  —  simply  affirming,  in  the  language  of 
Scripture  (our  only  light  here,)  that  "  God's  ways  are 
not  as  our  ways,  nor  his  thoughts  as  our  thoughts,"  but 
heaven-high  above  their  highest  reach.  The  universe  is 
finite  ;  for  it  is  not  God.  It  is  finite  in  time  and  space. 
It  has  a  certain  age ;  it  has  existed  a  certain  whole  or 
fractional  number  of  our  years ;  and  there  is  a  certain 
number  of  decimals,  if  we  knew  them,  or  could  write 
them,  by  which  it  is  expressible.  We  both  think  so, 
because  we  can  not  help  ourselves — we  can  not  think 
otherwise.  Our  reasonings  about  eternity  and  infinity 
are  worthless  in  themselves,  and  whatever  relative  value 
they  may  possess  is  only  on  that  side  which  proves 
their  worthlessness.  With  the  Scriptures  in  our  hands, 
we  can  go  directly  to  truths  which  philosophy  feebly 


140       THE   SCRIPTURES   TRANSCEND   PHILOSOPHY. 

announces,  and  of  which  science  knov/s  nothing.  One 
of  these  is  that  time  and  thought  are  not  to  God  what 
they  are  to  us.  In  going  beyond  this  simple  an- 
nouncement, or  in  dwelling  upon  it,  one  may  "  darken 
counsel  by  words  without  knowledge,"  but  his  error  is 
not  so  great  as  that  of  him  who  wholly  rejects  this  trans- 
cending truth,  or  whose  reasonings  claim  the  merit  of 
common  sense  and  intelligibility  only  by  being  directly 
opposed  to  it.* 

■'There  is  one  thing  conoected  with  this  matter  of  the  "  eternity  of  mat- 
ter," that  really  tries  the  patience.  We  allude  to  the  bugbear  of  Platon- 
ism,  raised  by  such  writers  as  Mr. LoRn  and  Professor  Dana,  and  the  ste- 
reotyped charge  they  uiiCke  that  Plato  taught  this  doctrine.  It  has  come 
from  Church  historian^  either  confounding,  or,  as  is  the  case  with  the  more 
respectable,  writing  so  carelessly  as  to  lead  their  readers  to  confound,  the 
oJd  with  the  neo-platonism.  Now,  we  affirm,  that  Plato  never  taught  the 
doctrine  in  any  such  sense  as  they  would  attach  to  it.  We  can  only  men- 
tion here  three  heads  of  ai-gument  that  might  be  conclusively  urged  in  re- 
futation.   There  is, 

1.  Plato's  labored  argument  against  the  atheists,  the  fundamental  posi- 
tion of  which  is  that  "  soi/l  is  older  than  matter,"  either  in  its  essence  or  its 
properties.  It  is  sufficient  to  saj-,  that  the  whole  foundation,  as  well  as  su- 
perstructure, of  this  elaborate  argument  is  destroyed  at  once  by  the  least 
admission  ol  the  idea  of  the  eternity  of  matter,  as  such  writers  understand 
it.     There  is, 

2.  The  important  distinction  so  clearly  made  in  the  Tima}us,  27,  D,  be- 
tween the  two  great  classes  of  existence,  <ro  ov  otSi  Vfvsrfiv  6s  wx  S'Xpv, 
— "  the  ever  being  that  hath  no  origination,"  and  to  Tirvofisvov,  or  "  that 
which  hath  birth,"  and  beginning,  as  well  as  change  and  end  ;  the  one  un- 
caused, uncreated,  unchanging, — the  other  born  in  lime,  continually  chang- 
ing, having  of  necessity  a  cause,  and  that  cause  the  pre-existent  being 
which  ho  calls  cd  OVTWJ  ov.  To  the  first  class  hcloxiQ  God  and  truth — 
God  as  the  oldest  soul,  and  truth  as  his  mind,  or  NoiJs  j  to  the  second,  all 
that  falls,  in  any  way,  under  the  cognizance  of  the  sense,  as  distinguished 
from  the  vo'/)TOV,  in  short,  the  world,  the  world  of  matter,  in  all  its  forms 
from  the  most  elementary  up  to  the  most  organic.  We  may  say,  too,  the 
world  with  all  its  dynamical  phenomena  and  physical  life  ;  for  nothing  is 
more  clear  than  that  Plato  represents  even  his  anima  mundi,  his  soul,  or 


ETERNITY  OF  MATTER  NOT  TAUGHT  BY  PLATO.     141 

Hfe^of  the  world,  as  a  distinct  creation  (wbctlier  absurdly  or  not,  we  do 
not  now  enquire)  made  by  the  Eternal  One  before  its  material  body. 

3.  The  eternity  of  the  material  world,  or  of  matter  in  any  sense,  would 
be" irreconcilably  at  war  with  that  doctrine  of  ideas  by  which  Plato  is  so 
widely  distinguished  from  the  Aristotelian  philosophy  of  old,  and  the  Ba- 
conian of  niodern  times.  Both  of  these  latter  are  perfectly  consistent  with 
the  idea  of  the  eternity  of  matter  and  of  a  world  of  eternal  causation  ;  nay, 
more,  they  can  not  disprove  it; — nay,  more,  they  are  compelled  to  admit 
it,  if  they  remain  true  to  their  fundamental  law  of  induction  without  uncon- 
sciously bringing  in,  from  other  sources,  a  light  that  of  itself  forms  no  part 
of  their  lauded  science  The  Platonic,  on  the  other  hand,  is  the  only  phi- 
losophy with  which  such  a  doctrine  is  fundamentally  and  irreconcilably  at 
war.  The  very  essence  of  the  Platouio  system  is  involved  in  its  great  gra- 
dations. Matter  is  younger  than  life,  life  is  junior  to  law,  law  is  .junior  to 
ideas,  ideas  belong  to  mind,  and  mind,  in  the  order  of  conception,  if  not  of 
time,  (for  here  all  time  is  transcended,)  is  born  of  the  Ara^ov,  or  the  inef- 
fable essence.  We  can  only  here  present  the  points  of  an  argument.  It 
is,  indeed,  an  attractive  theme  ;  but  its  full  discussion  would  demand  more 
pnace  than  can  be  bestowed  upon  it  in  the  present  volame. 


142   THE  FOUR  GREAT  IDEAS  OF  THE  MOSAIC  ACCOUNT. 


CHAPTER  V. 


THE   FOUR   GREAT   IDEAS    OF   THE   MOSAIC   ACCOUNT. 

The  Word— The  Work— The  Rest— The  Day— These  must 
he  in  Harmony  with  Each  Other — The  OldArahian  View 
—  The  Patriarchal  View — Theory  of  Guyot — Of  Mr. 
Lord — Of  Pye  Smith — The  True  Scriptural  View  is  the 
One  that  has  least  Need  of  Science. 

This  subject  of  the  Creative  Days  has  "been  pursued  at 
great  length  ;  and  we  -would,  therefore,  onlj  add  to  the 
present  argument  a  synoptical  view  covering  the  whole 
ground,  yet  capable  of  being  set  forth  in  the  clearest  and 
briefest  tei-ms.  To  the  writer's  own  mind  it  is  irresisti- 
ble, leaving  not  a  shade  of  doubt  as  to  the  general  force 
and  aspect  of  the  passage.  It  is  hoped  that  it  will  so 
strike  the  mind  of  the  serious  reader.  The  thought  has 
already  been  alluded  to  ;  but  it  is  one  that  will  bear  to 
be  dwelt  upon.  We  say,  then,  that  to  one  carefully 
reading  this  remarkable  chapter,  (Gen.  i,)  as  it  ought 
to  be  read,  there  must  present  themselves  four  important 
ideas,  standing  distinctly  and  prominently  out  from  the 
face  of  the  narrative.     There  is, 

1st.  The  going  forth  of  the  Word  and  Spirit,  each  timo 
in  wondrous  conjunction,  and  making  the  division  of  each 
wondrous  day. 

2d.  The  Divine  Work. 

8d.  The  Divine  Rest. 

4th.  The  Divine  Day  of  Working. 


THE  WORD — THE  WORK — THE  REST THE  DAY.   143 

Now,  we  appeal  to  Mr.  Lord  himself,  blindly  deter- 
mined as  he  is  to  peril  the  whole  veracity  of  the  Scrip- 
tures on  his  narrow  notion  of  twenty-four  houre.  The 
first  three  of  these  ideas,  he,  of  course,  admits  to  be  in- 
effable, that  is,  above  all  human  standard,  both  as  to 
manner  and  degree.  The  Word,  the  Work,  the  Rest — 
they  are  extraordinary,  to  say  the  least.  The  divine 
Spirit  was  not  a  wind,  as  some  say,  both  among  sciolists 
and  commentators.  The  divine  Word  was  not  an  audible 
voice.  Even  Mr.  Lord  would  not  dare  to  call  a  man  an 
infidel  for  thus  interpreting.  The  divine  Work  was  not 
a  mere  exercise  of  power,  a  huge  Cyclopean,  upheaving, 
earth-moving  strength,  differing  only  in  degree  (however 
immensely)  from  human  work.  We  cannot  repeat  it  too 
often — "  His  ways  are  not  as  our  ways,"  His  work  is 
not  as  our  work.  It  is  not  the  mere  quantitative  energy 
of  "  the  God  of  Forces;"*  it  differs  from  ours  not  only 
in  dynamical  potency,  but  wholly  in  some  transcending 
mode  or  series  of  working.  And  then  that  sublimest  of 
all  ideas,  the  divine  Repose  ;  we  can  not  get  words  for 
it ;  the  Hebrew  Sabbath  furnishes  the  simplest  concep- 
tion for  the  human  mind ;  other  terms  might  mar  and 
pervert,  as  well  as  fall  short ;  but  no  language  in  respect 
to  it  could  be  hyperbolical.  The  divine  repose  after  the 
creative  days !  Are  all  these,  then,  the  Word,  the  Work, 
the  Rest, —  are  all  these  extraordinary,  ineffable,  in  a 
word,  divine  ?  —  and  shall  we  not  extend  the  same  seals 
of  measurement,  and  the  same  mode  of  thinking,  to  that 
fourth  term,  and  that  fourth  idea,  which  is  ever  in  such 
immediate  connection  with  them  ?  If  we  refuse  to  do  this, 
why  not  bring  it  all  down  tt)  the  same  anthropomorphic 

•  Daniel  xi,  38.    Deum  Maozim,  as  the  Vulgate  calls  Iiim. 


144  GOD    HAS    EMPLOYED    SERIES. 

level  ?  The  one  view  is  no  more  metaphorical,  no  more 
forced,  no  more  an  accommodation  than  the  others. 
Where  all  else  is  superhuman,  divine,  shall  the  day  be 
a  human  day — just  such  a  day  as  Ave  now  see  constantly 
measured  by  the  sun  and  divided  by  the  clock  ?  The 
work  might  have  been  instantaneous,  and  that  would  also 
have  been  Avondrous,  ineffable.  True  —  but  it  is  clearly 
revealed  to  us  that  God  has  in  some  way  taken  times  for 
his  manifestations ;  he  has  employed  series ;  and  shall 
not  these  times  be  in  admitted  harmony  with  other  fea- 
tures of  the  grand  succession  ?  In  the  contemplation  of 
such  a  work,  and  such  a  rest,  can  we  without  a  discord 
mingle  the  idea  of  days  of  twenty-four  hours  each,  and 
especially  when  we  are  expressly  told  that  in  the  first 
four  of  these  mysterious  days  the  sun  had  not  yet  appear- 
ed in  the  heavens,  nor  any  outward  astronomical  pheno- 
mena by  which  such  time-periods  could  be  .connected 
with  any  outward  cosmical  standard?  Shall  all  else, 
then,  be  in  such  splendid  proportion,  and  yet  this  held 
to  be  of  such  withered  dimensions  ?  It  is  out  of  all  keep- 
ing. The  discord  of  such  a  view  must  have  been  felt  by 
Moses,  and  the  earliest  readers  of  Moses,  as  well  as  by 
any  modern  mind.  Science  has  given  us  no  advantage 
here.  The  world-problem,  and  especially  as  it  presented 
the  thought  of  great  successions  of  ages,  was  a  favorite 
of  the  earliest  east.  The  grand  conceptions  of  cycles, 
and  series,  and  olamic  periods,  came  as  easily  and  as 
truthfully  to  the  Idumean  sages  as  to  the  Yale  College 
Professor  of  Mineralogy  and  Conchology.  To  those  sons 
of  the  desert,  the  thought  may  have  been  suggested  by 
astronomical  cyclical  appearances,  or  it  may  have  been 
the  voice  of  old  traditions  that  had  come  over  the  waters 


THE   PATRIARCHS  —  THE   XC   PSALM.  1-15 

of  the  great  flood,  but  it  was  none  the  less  grand  and 
free  that  it  lay  in  their  minds  unconnected  with  any 
puzzling  positions  of  the  rocks,  or  any  doubtful,  ever- 
changing  statistics  of  exhumed  fossils.  They  needed 
nothing  of  this  to  convince  them  that  the  Great  Allah 
had  been  working,  not  from  an  absolute  eternity,  (a  me- 
taphysical notion  with  which  they  did  not  trouble  their 
devout,  practical  brains,)  but  for  ages,  and  ages  of  ages, 
running  on  to  an  extent  so  vast  that  our  own  age,  world, 
or  olam,  (for  all  these  words  mean  the  same  thing,) 
was  but  as  a  passing  day  in  the  mighty  series.  There 
can  not  be  a  more  frigid  conceit  than  that  modern  science 
either  gave  birth  to,  or  has  enlarged,  or  is  at  all  neces- 
sary to,  this  conception.  It  might  have  been  entertain- 
ed by  any  thoughtful  son  of  the  thoughtful  Shemitic  race. 
In  perfect  consistency  with  what  we  know  of  the  Patri- 
archal character,  may  it  have  been  thought  by  Abraham 
on  the  plains  of  Mamre,  or  by  Jacob  on  his  stone  pillow 
at  Bethel.  Above  all  would  it  be  familiar  to  that  same 
Moses,  "  the  man  of  God,"  who  has  given  us  this  history 
of  the  creative  days.  Who  can  have  a  doubt  remaining, 
as  he  reads  that  sublime  Ninetieth  Psalm,  which  all 
antiquity,  with  all  modern  assent,  has  ascribed  to  him  as 
its  author — "We  spend  our  years  as  a  tale  that  is 
told,  as  a  thought,  as  a  sigh,*  but  thou, .  0  Lord,  art 
from  olam  to  olam,  from  world  to  world !  A  thousand 
years  are  in  thy  sight  but  as  yesterday  when  it  is  past, 
and  as  a  watch  in  the  night."  We  have  advanced  on 
the  ideas  of  the  ancients,  it  is  vauntingly  said.  Compare 
this  conception  of  the  Mosaic  Psalm  with  Mr.  Lord's 

'  Such  is  the  expressive  rendering  of  the  Svriac. 


146   THE  GRAND  OUTLINE  FOR  SCIENCE  TO  TILL   UP. 

narrow  interpretations,  and  you  have  all  the  answer  that 
the  case  demands. 

Thus  we  have  the  simple  yet  grand  conception  as  it 
lay  in  that  imaging  mind  to  which  the  Divine  Spirit  first 
gave  it.  The  Times  are  as  extraordinary  as  the  Wm'd, 
the  Working,  and  the  Mest.  When  we  come  to  examine 
it  closely,  we  are  astonished  to  find  what  an  absence  of 
all  support  there  is  in  the  Scriptures  for  this  narrow  con- 
ception of  an  exact  twenty-four  hours.  Yet  once  off 
this  contracted  ground,  we  have  room  enough.  There 
need  be  no  concern  about  the  length  of  these  creative 
times.  We  may  dismiss  alike  from  our  thoughts  the 
clock  measured  solar  days,  and  the  stratified  eras  of  the 
geologists.  We  find  ourselves  among  the  aeons  and 
olams  of  the  Bible,  those  worlds,  or  ages,  that  we  are 
told,  Heb.  xi,  3,  were  framed,  or  put  in  order,  by  the 
Word  of  God  bringing  out  the  visible  from  the  invisible. 
There  is  ample  space  both  for  revelation  and  geology. 
Science  may  fill  up  the  details  as  she  pleases ;  she  may 
shift  them  as  she  pleases  ;  she  may  make  as  many  seem- 
ing "  harmonies,"  or  seeming  discords,  as  she  pleases. 
The  great  and  threatening  collision  was  in  the  idea  of 
the  earth's  remote  antiquity  which  science  claimed  to 
have  discovered.  The  opposite  cramping  view  removed, 
— the  Bible  suffered  to  speak  in  its  own  majestic  style, 

—  the  times  once  conceived  of,  and  most  rationally  con- 
ceived of,  as  in  harmony  with  the  other  sublimities  of  the 
narration, —  the  indefinite,  the  boundless  once  admitted, 

—  we  need  not  be  troubled  about  other  difficulties.  The 
grand  outline  order  must,  in  the  main,  remain  unaffected 
by  anything  that  any  induction  from  existing  appearances 


MOSES  HAD  NO  THOUGHT  OF  THE  NEBULAR  SCHEME.  147 

can  ever  present.  There  may  be  unexplained  appear- 
ances of  overlapping,  in  some  details,  but  the  great  peri- 
ods stand  out  in  bold  distinctness, —  a  dark  world  of  wa- 
ters— light  thereon  —  an  atmosphere,  or  skj  appearing 
— land  appearing  —  vegetable  life  —  celestial  manifes- 
tations—  animal  life  —  Man  —  the  world-rest.  These 
must  remain  in  their  grand  chronological  order,  what- 
ever face  science  may  put  on  or  oflf.  Here,  beside 
the  beginning  and  the  rest,  are  the  six  great  ineifable 
workings,  each  commencing  with  a  new  utterance  of 
the  Omnific  Word.  Here  are  the  six  great  divisions, 
each  supernatural,  or  Grod-made,  in  distinction  from  the 
natural  or  sun-divided  days.  Here  are  the  six  great  ap- 
pearances,  each  making  a  new  morning ;  and  all  followed 
by  that  wondrous  repose  of  Deity  which  distinguishes  the 
present  among  the  olamic  times. 

On  this  we  take  our  stand  as  opposed  to  the  most  nar- 
row anthropomorphism,  on  the  one  side,  and  the  ever- 
shifting  theories  of  science  on  the  other.  The  grand 
objections  to  the  view  of  Guyot,  as  advocated  by  Profes- 
sor Dana,  is,  that  it  either  makes  Moses  a  mere  mechan- 
ical revealer  of  facts  of  which  he  had  no  conceptions  at 
all,  or  gives  him  a  science  which  we  are  certain  he  could 
not  have  possessed.  He  no  more  thought  of  nebulre,  and 
nebular  rings,  than  he  did  of  sun-risings  and  twenty-four 
hours  for  the  first  great  day,  or  for  any  of  the  great  days 
that  followed.  He  thought  of  no  other  world  than  this, 
and  the  sky  around  it  which  he  called  the  heavens,  and 
in  which  the  heavenly  bodies  appeared.  These  heavenly 
bodies  are  presented,  not  in  their  far-off  unknown  locali- 
ties, but  as  they  are  optically  manifested  in  the  near 
visible  firmament.     It  was  that  sun  and  moon,  and  not 


148   MOSAIC  ACCOUNT  BETWEEN  THE  TWO  EXTREMES. 

the  sun  and  moon  of  modern  science,  with  which  Moses 
had  to  do.  He  may  have  known  more  or  less  about 
them ;  but  he  describes  the  "  things  that  are  seen,"  and 
their  origin  as  things  see7i,  instead  of  their  essential  birth 
from  nonentity,  or  the  causations  that  are  connected  with 
their  phenomenal  change.  The  second  day's  working 
had  no  reference  to  nebular  condensations  or  the  throwing 
off  the  nebular  rings  of  the  solar  system,  (if  there  ever 
were  such  rings,)  but  to  the  forming  of  our  earth's  atmo- 
sphere, and  its  phenomenal  sky.  His  chaos  was  a  cha- 
otic earth  covered  with  waters,  and  not  the  first  immea- 
surably extended  matter  of  the  universe.  His  stars  were 
luminous  points  in  the  firmament,  such  as  they  appeared 
when  the  arrangements  of  the  fourth  period  first  suffered 
them  to  shine  upon  the  earth,  and  not  the  far  off  suns 
whose  light  it  has  taken  millions  of  years  to  travel  down 
to  us. 

Thus  stands  the  Mosaic  narrative  by  itself,  unique  in 
its  subUmity.  The  views  we  have  rejected,  on  both  sides, 
are  so  rejected,  not  because  of  their  agreement,  or  disa- 
greement, with  science,  but  because  we  can  not  find  any 
place  for  either  in  the  written  narrative.  Especially  do 
we  fail  to  find  that  awful  chasm  that  Professor  Dana 
makes  in  the  work  of  the  second  day,  and  on  which  we 
Avould  dwell  more  fully  in  another  part  of  the  argument. 
Mr.  Lord's  scheme  is  at  war  with  the  obviously  remarkable 
or  extraordinary  character  of  the  first  days.  It  is  tested 
at  once  by  the  conclusive  fact,  that  it  has  to  bring  in 
more  explanations,  or  rather  guesses,  from  modern  sci- 
ence, than  the  view  which  he  falsely  charges  as  being 
held  in  deference  to  science.  It  has  to  talk  of  shifting 
axes,  and  changed  ecliptics  ;  it  has  to  falsify  the  account, 


THE  PYE  SMITH  THEORY.  149 

and  go  right  in  its  face,  bj  giving  the  heavenly  bodies 
their  earth-enhghtening,  day-measuring,  and  day-making 
office  in  the  very  beginnings  of  the  periods,  and  before 
the  fixed  date  tha.t  Scripture  assigns  to  them.  It  has 
thus  really  no  T^ork  at  all  for  the  fourth  day ;  it  is  a 
blank  in  the  creative  calendar,  occupied  simply  by  an 
empty  announcement  of  what  had  been  done  long  before. 
Its  opposition  to  well  settled  science  we  -would  not  dwell 
upon,  since  it  forms  no  part  of  our  plan.  Still,  since  Mr. 
Lord  has  so  much  to  say  of  science,  it  justifies  the  re- 
mark, that  no  man  of  ordinary  intelhgence  can  now  re- 
gard his  view  as  agreeing  with  the  most  common  obser- 
vations which  go  to  prove  the  earth's  antiquity.  The 
Pye  Smith  theory  is  at  war  both  with  science  and  reve- 
lation. It  is  opposed  to  the  manifest  idea,  that  the 
Mosaic  account  was  meant  to  embrace  the  whole  earth 
and  the  whole  sky  or  atmospherical  heavens  regarded  as 
above  and  around  it.  Equally  obvious  is  it  that  the 
Mosaic  narrative  means  to  commence  with  our  world  in 
a  state  of  comparative  infancy,  and  to  conduct  it  through 
a  series  of  ascending  toledoth,  or  "generations,"  up  to 
its  present  condition  as  the  abode  of  man.  Although 
not  cosmological  in  the  widest  sense,  so  as  to  embrace 
the  remotest  universe,  it  is  evidently  occupied  with  the 
history  of  our  planet  from  a  period  before  which  it  had 
not  been  a  world  of  life  or  light.  There  is  no  intimation 
of  any  previous  history  known  or  thought  of.  There  is 
no  evidence  that  would  justify,  on  any  philological  ground, 
the  throwing  back  the  first  verse  away  by  itself,  and  se- 
parating it  by  a  chasm  so  out  of  all  proportion  with  the 
shorter  times,  and  comparatively  modern  dates  that  come 
so  long  after.  Like  Mr.  Lord's  guesses,  it  is  a  mere  defer- 
13* 


150  THE  TRUE  VIEW  HAS  LEAST  NEED  OF  SCIENCE. 

ence  to  science,  and  one,  too,  which  creates  more  scien- 
tific difficulties  than  it  removes.  The  indefinite-time 
view  of  the  creative  day  falls  in  easily  with  the  spirit  of 
the  account,  and  proves  itself  to  be  the  true  interpreta- 
tion by  the  little  need  it  has  of  any  scientific  support,  or 
of  any  cosmological  conception  that  might  not  have  been 
entertained  by  the  earliest  minds.  It  is  the  Scriptural 
view,  and  science,  instead  of  demanding  a  forced  con- 
formity, must  seek  a  reconciliation  within  the  broad  limits 
it  allows.  She  must  not  ask  Biblical  men  to  be  ever 
putting  ahead  their  hermeneutical  landmarks  every  time 
she  chooses  to  change  her  oft-shifting  positions. 


SCIENCE   AND   THE   BIBLE.  151 


CPIAPTER  VL 


SCIENCE   AND    THE   BIBLE. 

Spirit  of  the  Scientijic  Patronage — Professor  Dana's  Apo- 
thegm—  The  Bible  "  the  Boat,  Science  the  Current" — 
TJie  Natural  in  Creation — Claim  of  Prior  Discovery — 
Claim  of  Science  to  have  Proved  the  Supernatural — Sci- 
ence can  not  find  the  Supernatural — Must  ever  assume 
a  Law  for  a  Fact — Can  not  even  find  a  God — An  Athe- 
ist as  good  a  Scientific  Man  as  a  Theist — Secret  Wheels 
and  Cogs  in  Nature — The  CrreaWr  Durations — Science 
can  not  disprove  Development — Can  never  refute  the 
"  Vestiges  of  Creatio7i'^ — Bible  alone  can  slay  "  2^he 
Vestiges." 

It  is  the  spirit  thus  manifested,  that  is  more  anti-Biblical 
than  any  particular  difficulties  raised  by  science.  With- 
out wishing  to  judge  harshly,  we  can  not  help  regarding 
it  as  in  its  ultimate  effects  more  injurious  to  a  true  and 
hearty  faith  than  the  unmistakable  feeling  manifested  by 
the  avowedly  unbelieving  geologist.  The  advocates  of 
this  pious  talking  theism  mean  well  undoubtedly  ;  but 
there  is  in  their  prominent  position  in  respect  to  the 
Scriptures,  and  their  favorite  talk  about  nature  as  a 
parallel  revelation,  as  real  an  undervaluing  of  the  true 
and  only  Divine  Word,  as  is  contained  in  Auguste 
Comte's  utter  rejection  of  the  idea.  The  author  of  the 
Vestiges  of  Creation,  as  far  as  we  can  see,  has  as  good 


152  "  THE  BIBLE  THE  BOAT,  SCIENCE  THE  CURRENT." 

a  theory  of  revelation  as  Professor  Dana.  When  he 
comes  to  the  proper  place  for  it  in  his  book,  the  latter 
Tvriter  talks  just  as  piously  as  our  scientiiGc  friend,  and 
as  we  expect  to  show,  with  as  much  consistency.  The 
Bible  is  the  boat — the  New-Haven  authority  lets  us 
know,  in  his  significant  comparison — the  Bible  is  the 
boat,  and  geology,  or  science,  the  current  in  which  it 
floats.  There  is  no  mistaking  the  meaning,  or  certainly 
the  spirit,  of  the  representation.  The  writer  did  not  in- 
tend to  be  impious.  The  professed  orthodoxy  of  his 
literary  position  would  lead  him  to  speak  well  of  the 
Bible,  and  to  be  rhetorical  about  "  the  harmonies,"  etc. ; 
but  he  is  sometimes  off  his  guard.  He  becomes  so  in 
the  passage  to  which  we  now  refer,  and  which  may  be 
found  on  page  93  of  his  review.  It  had  been  remarked 
in  the  book,  that  "  §feology  had  been  driven  more  and 
more  to  acknowledge  the  mixture  of  the  natural  and  the 
supernatural  in  the  production  of  the  earth."  This  is 
taken  up  as  an  insult  to  geology,  and  the  champion  of 
geology  and  science  in  general  must  repel  it  with  indig- 
nation, and  not  only  that,  but  even  "  carry  the  war  into 
Africa," — and  there  he  forgets  himself.  It  had  not 
been  said,  at  all,  that  Geology  had  been  driven  to  this 
by  any  BibUcal  interpretations.  We  never  supposed 
her  so  pious  as  that.  In  fact,  the  thought  was  the  other 
way.  She  had  been  driven  to  it  by  the  pious  feeling 
seeking  it  in  her  own  discoveries, —  the  pious  feeling 
which,  although  no  part  of  science,  and,  in  truth,  no  effect 
of  science,  yet  was  vital  in  many  most  excellent  scientific 
men,  and  controlled  their  scientific  reasonings.  When 
it  was  thus  said  that  Geology  had  recognized  the  super- 
natural, it  should  have  been  regarded  as  something  of  a 


SCIENTIFIC   MEN   IN   GERMANY  AND   FRANCE.     153 

compliment  to  this  youngest  daughter  among  the  sciences. 
But  the  word  "  driven"  was  perhaps  the  offensive  term. 
It  would  seem  to  convey  the  impression  that  Geology  is 
not  naturally,  as  some  claim,  very  religious,  that  she  is 
not  ever  seeking  the  supernatural  and  rejoicing  exceed- 
ingly to  find  it.  And  yet  such  a  suspicion  might  he  par- 
doned in  one  who  had  only  read  the  works  of  Lyell,  and 
knew  how  scientific  men  in  Germany  and  France — men 
certainly  every  way  the  equals  of  Professor  Dana — had 
rejected  this  whole  notion  of  supernaturalism  which  he 
claims  to  have  been  a  discovery  of  science.  But  such  a 
thought,  it  seems,  can  not  be  allowed  at  all ;  Geology, 
as  such,  must  be  cleared  of  every  suspicion.  It  is  not 
enough  to  concede  to  her  the  supernatural  as  a  frank 
admission  joyfully  made  by  pious  geologists,  and  on  evi- 
dence piously  sought  in  deference  to  so  respectable  an 
authority  as  a  divine  revelation,  but  it  must  be  an  original 
or  independent  discovery  of  science,  which  Bible  men 
must  take  on  her  authority,  and  bring  their  Bibles  up  to 
it,  easily  if  it  may  be,  but  forcibly  if  no  other  method  re- 
mains. But  to  give  the  quotation — This,  says  Professor 
Dana,  in  reply  to  the  bare  suspicion  that  Geology  had 
been  influenced  by  revelation,  (a  false  suspicion,  too,  of 
his  own  as  to  the  meaning  of  the  passage  in  the  book,) 
this  "  is  very  much,  we  think,  as  a  current  is  driven  by 
the  boat  it  carries  ;  for  (jQology  first  proved  that  the  na- 
tural was  involved  in  creation,  and  with  a  rare  exception 
has  always  admitted  the  supernatural ;  and  she  has 
finally  draivn  off  exegesis  so  completely  into  the  same 
course,  that  some,  as  they  are  hurried  on  by  the  current, 
exclaim  in  great  glee  over  their  wonderful  progress,  and 
in  their  remarkable  self-complacency  look  down  frowning 


154   THE  COMPARISON  AN  INSULT  TO  THE  SCRIPTURES. 

upon  the  current  that  they  imagine  is  trying  to  keep  up 
with  them."     There  is  no  mistaking  this  language,  nor 
the  spirit  from  which  it  proceeds.     It  is  a  spirit,  we  say 
it  boldly,  that  is  more  odious  than  the  avowed  infidelity 
that  has  led  scientific  men  (some  of  them,  perhaps,  in 
deep  sorrow,)  to  regard  the  Sci-iptures  and  scientific  dis- 
covery as  hopelessly  irreconcilable.     It  is  a  language, 
moreover,  we  say  it  fearlessly,  which  is  and  ought  to  be 
regarded  as  an  insult  to  the  Christian  world.     It  was  an 
insult  to  the  Biblical  Editors  of  that  Biblical  Review  in 
which,  by  a  circuitous  route,  he  sought  to  obtain  an  influ- 
ence for  his  criticism  which  it  never  could  have  had  on 
its  own  merits.     It  was  an  insult  to  every  clergyman, 
unless  it  be  those  who  regard  this  mode  of  defending  the 
Scriptures  as  better  and  more  available  than  interpreta- 
tion.    Such  are  pleased,  doubtless,  because  it  so  piously 
patronises  Moses,  and  makes  him  so  much  more  scientific 
than  they  had  ever  imagined.     But  what  is  their  occu- 
pation, not  to  speak  of  their  vocation,  if  the  above  para- 
graph be  true,  either  in  its  letter  or  its  spirit  ?  AVhat  are 
the  clergy,  what  are  orthodox  Professorships,  what  is 
Yale  College,  or  Andover  theology, —  what  are  Biblical 
Reviews,  if  the  Bible  is  indeed  such  a  nose  of  wax,  which 
can  be  made  to  suit  any  countenance,  and  Biblical  faith 
such  a  "  floating  boat"  on  the  current  of  science,  as  this 
writer  has  so  unmistakably  represented  it  ?   There  is  no 
misunderstanding  the  language,  or  the  air  of  scientific 
pride,  with  which  it  is  brought  in.    Biblical  interpretation 
is  "  the  boat,"  and  science  is  the  broad  directing  cur- 
rent in  which  it  floats,  and  by  which  it  is  carried  down. 
The  contrary  idea  that  in  revelation  may  be  found  the 
permanent,  whilst  science  sometimes  floats,  and  shifty  her 


NO  MISTAKING  ITS   SPIRIT.  156 

place,  is  treated  as  a  hypocritical  pretense.  An  honest 
and  hearty  study  of  the  Scriptures,  with  a  conviction 
deep  as  life  itself,  that  all  the  treasures  of  human  science 
and  human  philosophy  could  never  begin  to  pay  for  the 
loss  of  that  first  chapter  of  Genesis. —  or  of  the  deference 
which  is  its  due  —  such  a  study,  and  such  an  expression 
of  opinion  is  treated  as  a  hollow  ruse  on  the  part  of  these 
men  of  exegesis.  It  is  all  a  false  pretense  to  save  their 
waning  credit.  They  glorify  the  old  book,  and  "  exclaim 
in  great  glee  over  their  wonderful  progress,"  when,  after 
all,  they  are  only  sailing  down  that  current  which  they 
"  imagine  is  trying  to  keep  up  with  them,"  and  which 
"has  drawn  off  exegesis  so  completely  into  its  course." 
There  is  no  mistaking,  we  say,  the  meaning  of  this  lan- 
guage, or  the  temper  which  gave  it  utterance.  We  have 
battled  some  with  the  infidels,  perhaps,  at  times,  with  too 
much  acrimony,  though  ever  with  an  irresistible  feeling 
of  the  life  and  death  nature  of  the  controversy, —  but 
there  is  a  patronage  of  Christianity,  and  of  the  Bible, 
compared  with  which  unbelief  is  entitled  to  our  sympathy. 
We  say  it  fearlessly,  there  is  no  form  of  Bible  rejection 
we  would  not  respect  more  than  the  spirit  of  the  above 
quoted  passage ;  there  is  no  position  of  infidelity  we  would 
not  openly  avow  rather  than  be  the  author  of  such  a  de- 
claration. To  see  how  this  petty  science  assumes  to  lord 
it  over  the  Scriptures,  and  the  men  of  the  Scriptures ! 
for  there  is  no  proof  that  the  author  of  the  book  assailed 
is  alone  referred  to.  A  class  is  described.  It  is  the 
friends  of  exegesis,  who  pretend  to  find  in  the  Bible  evi- 
dence of  what  Geology  claims  as  all  her  own.  The  sneer- 
ing remark  has  an  equal  application  to  all  who  study  the 
Bible  with  the  expectation  that  it  will  teach  them  any 


156  MEETING   OF  EXTREMES. 

thing  on  the  great  questions  of  origin  and  destiny  that 
would  certainly  seem  to  fall  so  appropriately  within  its 
revealing  province.  All  such  men  are  invading  the  do- 
main of  Professor  Dana  and  his  friend  Agassiz.  Their 
exegesis  is  all  a  mockery.  They  are  in  a  "  floating  boat," 
and  that  boat  is  in  a  current  from  which  they  can  not 
get  out.  Their  Bibhcal  studies  are  all  a  mere  pretense 
to  enable  them  to  make  the  best  of  their  poor  position  in 
the  rear  of  science.  Strange  how  apparent  extremes  do 
sometimes  agree  !  Mr.  Lord  from  Im  stand  point  has  a 
similar  view,  and  expresses  precisely  the  same  feeling. 
Any  man  who  ventures  to  think  that  the  wondrous  crea- 
tive day  was  not  exactly  twenty-four  hours  in  duration, — 
neither  more  nor  less — he  unhesitatingly  sets  down  as 
insincere.  Their  deriving  such  a  view  from  the  Scrip- 
tures, he  modestly  says,  is  all  a  pretense.  They  would 
have  us  believe  that  they  have  anchored  their  exegetical 
boat,  when  they  are  only  floating  down  the  current  of 
science. 

We  have  had  mainly  to  do  with  the  spirit  of  the  above 
extract,  but  a  few  words  may  be  given  to  some  of  its 
statements.  "  Geology,"  says  Professor  Dana,  '-'■  first 
proved  that  the  natural  was  involved  in  creation." 
Here  there  is  something  very  sweeping.  No  room  for 
modifications  or  exceptions.  Has  he  traced  the  conse- 
qnences  of  this  far-reaching  assertion  ?  What,  too,  must 
we  think  of  its  modesty,  when  we  keep  in  mind  the  con- 
nections in  which  it  is  said,  and  the  references  it  invari- 
ably suggests  ?  Geology  first  proved !  — It  is  a  claim  of 
priority.  Against  whom  ?  Against  what  ?  Who  is  the 
rival  in  the  case  ?  It  is  no  one  of  the  fellow-sciences  ;  it 
is  no  dogma  of  philosophy ;  it  is  no  competing  theory. 


CLAIM   OF  PRIOR  DISCOVERY.  157 

professing  to  rest  itself  solely  on  human  reasoning  and 
human  scientific  discovery.  It  is  certainly  a  strange  as- 
sertion ;  but  it  reveals  the  whole  spirit  of  the  article  in 
which  it  appears.  It  can  have  no  meaning  unless  the 
supposed  rival  claimant  be  the  Scriptures,  or  the  Scrip- 
tures so  interpreted  as  in  any  way  to  teach  the  natural 
in  creation.  It  reminds  us  strongly  of  the  comparatively 
petty  disputes  which  so  often  arise  within  this  jealous 
field  of  natural  science,  such  as  the  question — Who  first 
thought  of  steamboats,  or  who  first  invented  the  cotton 
picker,  or  who  first  discovered  the  principle  of  the 
daguerreotype.  Such  questions  may  amuse  us,  but  the 
competition  here  presented  is  revolting  to  every  true  feel- 
ing of  faith  and  reverence.  "  Geology  first  showed  the 
natural  in  creation"  !  Then  it  is  not  taught  in  the  Bible 
at  all.  If  so,  what  becomes  of  "  the  harmony,"  that 
boasted  "  harmony  of  science  and  revelation,"  which 
Professor  Dana  takes  as  the  running  title  of  his  article  ? 
Does  he  mean  that  Geology  first  discovered  this  exegeti- 
cally  ?  That  would  be  nonsense.  But  by  what  other 
possible  process  could  she  find  it  out  ? —  we  mean,  not 
simply  the  natural,  but  the  natural  in  creation.  This  is 
the  essence  of  the  vaunting  proposition.  Geology  might 
discover  the  natural  in  the  rocks ;  but  how  does  she 
know  whether  this  is  creation,  or  any  part  of  creation  ? 
It  is  mainly  a  Scriptural  word  and  a  Scriptural  idea. 
How  does  she  know  at  all  what  creation  is,  or  what  cos- 
mical  acts  are  included  in  the  word,  unless  the  Creator 
reveals  it  to  her  ?  How  does  she  know  that  creation, 
whatever  it  may  be,  is  not  now  going  on  ?  How  has  she 
learned  when  it  ceased,  or  where  it  began,  or  in  what 
processes  or  periods  it  consists,  unless  by  a  revelation 

14 


158        IDEAS   OF   LAW   AND   NATURE   VERY   OLD. 

from  some  higher  plane,  or  from  that  higher  ground  the 
Scriptures  are  assumed  to  occupy. 

If  it  is  not  taught  in  the  Scriptures,  then  Professor  Dana 
is  in  opposition  to  them ;  for  there  can  be  no  middle  ground 
here  ;  the  ignoring  so  important  an  element  in  the  crea- 
tive process,  is  equivalent  to  a  denial  of  it.  Such  opposi- 
tion would  not  give  much  trouble  to  some  men  ;  for  -we 
boast  of  being  a  free  thinking  age ;  but  the  Professor  must, 
in  some  general  -way,  be  on  Bible  ground.  He  ^yould  not 
wholly  discard  the  old  boat  as  long  as  it  floats  so  conven- 
iently and  so  quietly  down  the  current.  It  may  have  been 
in  the  Scriptures,  however,  one  might  say,  yet  undis- 
covered, "  until  science  found  it  elseAvhere."  That 
would  be  strange,  especially  since  the  idea  of  the  natu- 
ral, and  the  words  by  which  we  express  it,  date  from 
the  earliest  times,  and  from  the  very  roots  of  language. 
Their  primary  images  fade  away  and  the  words  are  laid  up 
as  fossils  or  dried  plants  in  the  cabinets  of  science  and  phi- 
losophy. But  the  ideas  both  of  nature  and  law  are  very 
old.  There  are  two  reasons  for  this.  The  most  common 
observation  discloses  the  fact  of  a  regular  ongoing  in  this 
world  in  which  one  thing  is  continually  coming  out  of 
another,  and,  secondly,  it  is  one  of  the  inward  laws  of 
the  mind's  thinking,  if  it  think  at  all,  that  there  must  be 
an  outward  law, —  a  harmony,  unity,  call  it  what  we  may, 
that  hinds  these  ongoings  together  in  one  kosmos  as  the 
idea  of  one  mind.  Thus  every  particular  organism  is 
thought  of  as  having  its  life  and  law,  without  which  it 
could  not  be  an  organism,  and  the  same  mode  of  think- 
ing is  irresistibly  carried  out  to  the  law,  or  unity  of  the 
great  whole  as  far  as  it  is  known  to  the  sense,  or  con- 
ceived to  be.     It  is  the  foohsli  boast,  and  stale  story  of 


-  -SOCRATES'    UNIVERSAL   HARMONY.  159 

!>he  modern  scientific  lecturer,  or  college  orator,  that 
this  idea  of  universal  law  was  never  in  the  world  until 
Newton  saw  an  apple  fall  from  a  tree;  but  long  ago 
Socrates  spoke  of  it  as  an  opinion  held  by  the  sages  of 
old,  and  he  might  have  said  the  men  of  old,  that  "  har- 
mony and   order    (xo^fAioViira,   law,  or  regular  harmo- 
nious arrangement,)  held  together   heaven  and  earth, 
and  that  for  this  very  reason  the  ivliole  was  called  kos- 
mos."     It  was  a  "  geometrical  equality  or  harmony," 
he  says,  indicating  that  it  was  a  higher  mathematical 
law  which  after-science  might  trace  a  few  steps  farther, 
but  no  science  could  ever  hope  to  sum  in  all  its  glorious 
completeness.     The  idea  of  Socrates'  ancient  sages  is 
no  where  more  clear,  to  one  who  will  look  for  it,  than  on 
the  pages  of  the  Old  Testament-     It  is  the  tzjVSy-ph,  the 
law  of  Oiam,  and  the  pa,rticular  manifestations  of  it,  are 
the  &Viy  niph,  or  the  v^ini  t=^^u>  mpn,  the  laws  of  the 
Heavens  and  the  Earth,  Jer.  xxxiii,  25,  Job  xxxviii,  33. 
the  "  laws  of  the  moon  and  the  stars,"  Jer.  xxxi,  35. 
It  is  the  "  loord  or  law  of  the  Lord  (Psalm  cxix,  89) 
that   is    established   in    the    Heavens"  —  In  teternum 
Domine,  verbum  tuum  permanet  in  coelo,  in  generatio- 
nem  et  generationem.     Ordinatione  tua  perseverat  dies  ; 
rjuoniam  omnia  serviunt  tibi.     "  All  things  stand  accord- 
ing to  thine  ordinances."     How  much  better  and  nobler 
is  the  mere  recognition  of  such  a  law,'however  taught  or 
acquired,   than  the  science  which,  in  its   extravagant 
boasting  at  having  traced  a  few  of  its  links,  loses  all  the 
moral  grandeur  of  the  idea,  in  the  petty,  selfish,  scientific 
interest. 

It  may  be  thought  by  some  that  the  author,  led  away 
by  a  favorite  idea,  is  finding  too  much  in  the  Scriptures 


160   THE  lecturers'  TALK  OF   "  PHYSICAL   LAWS." 

that  would  seem  to  him  to  have  a  scientific  or  philosophic 
aspect.  But  this  would  be  an  altogether  mistaken  view 
of  his  aim  and  thought.  There  is  no  science  in  the 
Bible  —  God  be  praised  for  the  fact.  But  there  is  that 
which  is  deeper  than  science,  broader  than  science  ;  we 
mean  in  respect  to  nature  and  the  world.  There  is  that 
which  is  fundamental  to  all  sound  thinking,  and  which 
science,  in  its  modern  acceptation,  instead  of  having  dis- 
covered or  made  more  clear,  oftentimes  confuses  and 
obscures.  It  is  so  with  these  ideas  of  laio  and  nature. 
Men  thought  as  distinctly  about  them,  and  as  truly  about 
them,  with  a  limited,  as  they  do  now  with  a  multiplied 
knowledge  of  physical  facts ;  and  the  reason  is,  that 
such  thinking  does  not  depend  on  amount  of  facts,  or 
quantity  of  discovery  great  in  one  aspect  yet  ever  most 
minute  in  another,  but  derives  its  strength,  and  its  cer- 
tainty, from  those  broad  and  universal  views  that  He 
upon  the  honest,  intelligent  face  of  nature,  those  views 
that  require  not  so  much  the  experimenting  crucible,  as 
the  musing,  meditative  mind.  Modern  science  would 
have  us  believe  that  these  ideas  are  all  her  own ;  that 
the  terms  belong  to  her  vocabulary.  To  listen  to  the 
rigmarole  about  "  physical  laws"  which  so  often  furnishes 
the  whole  warp  and  woof  of  a  scientific  lecture,  one  might 
almost  suppose  that  the  idea,  and  all  connected  with  it, 
had  been  before  utterly  unknown  to  the  world,  instead  of 
being  interwoven,  as  it  really  is,  into  all  language,  and 
all  thinking  that  deserves  the  name.  We  mean  a  true 
idea  of  laiv,  with  its  two  inseparable  thoughts  —  both  of 
which  some  kinds  of  science  have  a  tendency,  cither 
atheistically  or  pantheistically,  to  obscure  —  the  thought 
of  a  lawgiver  who  imposes  the  law,  and  of  a  true  subject. 


HEBREWS  BELIEVED  IN  A  REAL  NATURE.    161 

or  nature,  made  capable  of  obeying  it.  As  well  might 
the  discovery  of  the  mighty  ocean  be  claimed  for  those, 
and  by  those,  who  had  made  a  few  shore  soundings  on 
the  edge  of  its  unfathomable  depths.  This  "  great  and 
wide  sea"  of  causahty  had  been  gazed  upon,  and  mused 
upon,  by  the  human  soul,  just  as  effectually  (as  far  as 
the  higher  ideas  of  philosophy  and  theology  are  concern- 
ed) before  physical  science,  so  called,  raised  its  head,  as 
since  it  has  filled  the  age  with  its  noisy  claims.  The 
assertion  is  made  because  truth  demands  and  can  sustam 
it ;  even  if  the  interest  of  sound  thinking,  and  sound  phi- 
losophising, were  not  both  concerned  (as  they  truly  are) 
in  the  abatement  of  these  one-sided,  blinding  pretensions. 
No  man  can  carefully  study  the  Bible  without  finding 
the  fullest  recognition  of  a  nature,  or  order  of  tilings, 
universal  and  particular.  Yet  Deity  is  ever  represented 
as  working  hy  it,  and  through  it,  and  over  it.  It  is  not 
the  sentimental  notion  of  "  God  in  nature,"  the  preten- 
tiously pious,  yet  pantheistic  idea  of  the  Power  that 

Warms  in  the  sun,  i-cfreshea  in  tiie  breeze, 
Glows  in  tlie  stars,  and  blossoms  in  tlie  trees. 

No,  the  Hebrews  believed  in  a  real  nature  that  God 
had  made  to  "go  of  itself,"  as  He  had  the  right  and 
poiver  to  do.  It  was  a  real  nature  under  the  control 
of  One  who  sat  above  it  in  the  skies,  and  who  made  use, 
not  alone  of  the  matter  he  had  originated,  but  of  the 
laivs  and  forces  he  had  created  (as  well  as  the  matter) 
to  accomplish  his  good  pleasure  in  the  world,  and  to  bring 
to  pass  what  he  had  eternally  decreed  should  be  done. 
They  distinguished,  however,  between  two  modes  of 
action  in  the  divine  government.  They  made  a  more 
practical  and  clear  division  than  is  conveyed  by  our  terms 

14* 


162  "  THE   FINGER   OF   GOD." 

natural  and  supernatural,  especially  as  now  used  in  their 
clouded  philosophic  sense.  It  was  more  properly  a  dis- 
tinction of  mediate  and  immediate.  It  was  the  mediate 
action  employing  the  established  ordinances  of  the  world, 
or  it  was  that  direct  immediate  action  which  they  called 
by  the  expressive  term,  "  the  finger  of  God."  And  this 
contented  them.  The  careful  student  of  the  Bible  can 
not  fail  to  see,  and  to  be  struck  with,  the  manner  of  the 
sacred  writers  in  this  respect.  How  boldly,  and  with 
how  little  fear  of  inconsistency,  they  set  forth  these  two 
agencies,  evidently  regarding  the  one  recognition  as 
being  as  pious,  and  as  honorable  to  Deity,  as  the  other. 
Whether  He  employ  "  a  strong  east  wind  (Exod.  xiv, 
21,)  to  make  the  sea  go  back,"  sending  his  own  divine 
agency  into  the  linked  causalities  of  nature  without 
breaking  one  of  them,  or  make  the  water  gush  forth  from 
the  arid  rock  in  crushing  defiance  of  all  the  laws  of  solids 
and  fluids,  it  is  still  the  same  unmistakable  divinity. 
These  primitive  men —  though  with  a  clear  recognition 
of  nature  in  its  true  idea — see  no  more  danger  to  faith 
in  the  natural,  or  semi-natural,  in  the  one  case,  than  in 
the  immediate  supernatural  of  the  other.  They  went 
farther  than  this.  They  recognized  this  divine  agency 
as  controlUng,  not  only  nature,  but  something"else  which 
God  had  also,  in  his  might  and  sovereignty,  made  to 
"  go  of  itself"  within  certain  limits,  and  for  certain  pur- 
jioses  which  he  meant  to  accomplish.  They  did  not  hesi- 
tate to  recognize  him*  as  interfering  with  the  law  and 

*  This  idea  of  a  divine  intervening  causality  directing,  controlling,  turn- 
ing round,  events  that  depend  on  human  volitions,  is  most  significantly  ex- 
pressed by  a  curious  Hebrew  word  which  sometimes  occurs.  They  called  it 
flSD,  Sib-ha,  a  revolution,  conversion,  or  turning  of  anything  out  of  its 
rouvse,  or,  as  we  would  idiomatically  say,  a  bringing  about.    There  is  a 


"  HARDENING  PHARAOH'S  HEART."      163 

liberty  of  human  wills,  turning  them  this  way  and  that 
as  important  agencies  in  the  bringing  about  the  issue  of 
his  sovereign  counsels.  This,  also,  was  sometimes  medi- 
ate and  sometimes  direct.  He  employs  the  ambition  of 
Nebuchadnezzar  for  one  end,  the  weak  vanity  of  Heze- 
kiah  for  another.  Whether  it  be  a  vindictive,  or  a  disci- 
plinary purpose,  to  punish  an  individual  or  a  nation,  or 
to  show  a  man  "  what  was  in  his  heart,"  still  it  is  the 
divine  agency,  and  distinctly  recognized  as  such.  There 
is,  too,  the  same  bold  assertion  of  the  fact  when  he  acts 
directly  on  the  conduct  of  human  agents ;  —  as  when,  for 
example,  he  "  hardens  Pharoah's*  heart  that  he  might 

striking  example,  1  Kings,  xii,  15,  where,  of  Relioboam's  most  impolitic 
answer  to  the  people,  it  is  said — "  This  was  a  sibba,  or  bringing  about, 
from  the  Lord,  that  he  might  establish  his  word  which  he  spake  by  Ahijah 
the  Shilonite."  The  LXX  call  it  a  ^STadr^oCpij,  or  turning  aside.  Th? 
jirimary  image  of  the  verb,  which  is  very  commou,  gives  us  the  favorite 
ancient  idea  of  a  wheel,  or  wheels,  (cyclical  movements,)  as  denoting  me- 
diate and  circuitous  in  distinction  from  direct  or  straight  causality,  and  yet 
without  any  breach  of  the  laws  of  human  thinking  or  human  feeling.  The 
vei"b  is  used  in  the  same  manner,  1  Sam.  xxii,  22.  Hence  in  the  cognate 
Arabic,  and  modern  Syriac,  a  noun  of  causality  sababun — Res  qua  nliqnid 
cum  allero  conjungitur — vinculum  affinitatis — and  hence,  as  a  conjunctive 
particle — causa,  propter — denoting  motives,  reasons,  as  links  in  a  spiritual 
chain  or  circuit  of  events.    See  also  2  Chron.  x,  15. 

*  The  old  Jewish  writers  had  as  tender  a  moral  sense  as  we  have  ;  but 
they  never  seem  to  shrink  from  such  expressions  and  such  an  idea.  And 
why  should  we  ?  The  Hebrew  pTh,  the  verb  employed  here,  docs  not 
mean  creating  evil  where  evil  did  not  exist  before.  We  stear  clear  of  that 
inexplicable  problem  in  this  case.  It  does  not  mean  that  a  tender  con- 
science was  indurated  either  directly  or  mediately,  positively  or  per- 
niissively.  It  does  not  mean,  that  a  good  and  pious  nature  was  forced  to 
evil,  or  that  a  good  and  holy  will  was  turned  into  a  bad  will.  Let  any  one 
examine  carefully  the  Hebrew  verb,  and  he  will  see,  we  venture  to  think, 
why  the  moral  sense  of  the  writers  was  not  shocked,  as  ours  should  not 
be.  The  term  has  no  moral  or  even  spiritual  meaning  in  the  higher  import 
of  the  word  spiritual.  It  means,  to  strengthen,  make  firm,  bind  hard.  The 
influence  was  on  the  sensitive  or  lower  nature.  God  nerved  this  wicked 
coward  do  his  own  wicked  will,  and  so  carry  out  the  righteous  purposes 


164  BOLD  STYLE  OP  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  WRITERS. 

not  let  the  people  go."  Whether  he  acts  directly  and 
positively  on  the  heart  of  Pharaoh,  which  is  the  only 
sense  the  passage  will  bear,  or  employs  the  evil  nature 
that  is  already  in  that  vessel  of  dishonor,  it  is  equally 
the  Divine  power  acting  according  to  the  high  and  most 
righteous  counsel  of  the  Divine  Will. 

But  let  us  state  the  bearing  of  this  upon  the  main  ar- 
gument. We  would  say,  then,  that  it  is  this  distinct 
recognition  of  each,  and  yet  this  fearless  mingling  of  the 
ideas  of  the  natural  and  the  supernatural  in  the  divine 
action,  that  forms  a  peculiar  feature  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, and  renders  easy  of  belief,  and  easy  of  interpreta- 
tion, the  assertions  which  look  like  setting  forth  natural 
processes,  growths,  or  generations,  in  the  creative  ac- 
count. The  inspired  writer,  and  his  old  readers,  were 
not  concerned  lest  it  should  seem  to  detract  from  the 
honor  of  Deity.  They  acknowledged  the  natural  in  cre- 
ation, as  easily  as  they  acknowledged  the  supernatural 
in  their  subsequent  history.  Whether  our  modern  ten- 
dency to  crowd  all  of  the  one  kind  into  the  early  days, 
and  to  recognize  as  little  as  possible  of  it  anywhere  else, 
comes  from  a  stronger  faith,  and  a  more  reverent  sense 
of  Deity,  may  well  be  doubted. 

If,  then,  the  natural  is  in  the  creative  account,  it  may 
certainly  have  been  discovered  by  some  minds.  If  so, 
it  should  not  be  insulted  as  a  pretense,  even  tliough 
brought  out  so  late  as  the  nineteenth  century.     But,  in 

of  a  divine  and  holy  will.  He  made  liiiu  stronf^,  which  he  had  as  good  a 
right  to  do  as  to  keep  him  alive.  He  made  Pharoah  no  worse,  but  gave 
this  bad  man  courage  (heart  strength)  to  net  out  what  was  ui  him.  Some 
may  stumble  at  this,  but  those  who  get  their  theology  from  the  Bible  must 
regard  it  as  a  divine  prerogative,  righteous  in  its  exercise  and  glorious  in 
its  display. 


GROWTH  IN   CREATION.  165 

fact,  it  ^vas  discovered  long  ago.  If  there  is  no  idea  of 
the  natural  in  the  First  of  Genesis,  it  is  no'W'here  in  the 
Bible,  for  there  is  employed  there  the  same  language  of 
hirth,  oi  groioth,  of  succession,  oi  generation,  in  a  word, 
of  natio'e,  that  in  other  parts  is  applied  to  what  can  be 
taken  in  no  other  possible  sense.  It  is  not  a  new  dis- 
covery. Old  interpreters  saw  it,  and  saw  it  clearly. 
St.  Augustine  is  explicit  upon  it,  as  we  have  shown. 
He  calls  the  creative  periods  by  this  very  name  of  na- 
tures, and  founds  his  idea  of  the  days  on  this  very  dis- 
tinction of  the  natural  and  supernatural.  We  might  fill 
pages  with  decisive  proof  of  the  utter  falsity  as  well  as 
recklessness  of  the  assertion.  The  idea  of  creative  gen- 
eration is  more  prominent  in  the  patristric  writings,  but  it 
has  ever  been  in  the  Church  as  an  opinion  that  might  be 
orthodoxly  held. 

But  let  us  look  again  at  the  spirit  of  this  boast.  The 
Scriptures  have  no  meaning,  no  ascertainable  meaning, 
at  least,  on  this  and  kindred  questions,  until  Geology 
brings  her  fossil-lighted  lamp  for  their  illumination.  It 
is  the  spirit  the  writer  is  ever  so  full  of,  and  which  he 
can  not  disguise.  And  yet  how  odd  it  is  that  those  very 
passages  where  a  natural  growth  is  most  clearly  set  forth, 
if  any  language  can  set  it  forth,  he  wholly  ignores,  and 
not  only  so,  but  in  his  exuberant  piety  brands  the  inter- 
pretation given  them  (and  that,  too,  without  even  an 
attempt  at  refuting  such  interpretation,)  with  the  oppro- 
brious name  of  naturalism  —  that  bugbear  of  "  the  reli- 
gious world,"  so  well  adapted  to  carry  with  it  the  narrow 
odium  theologicum.  Grand  work  this  for  our  man  of 
science  !  It  might  not  be  so  strange  in  the  narrow  polem- 
ical theologue,  but  science  boasts  of  its  liberal  spirit,  its 


166         THE  NATURAL  IN  CREATION. 

Baconian  progress  ;  it  is  ever  talking  of  Galileo  and  free 
thought.  It  would  be  easy  to  show  that,  according  to 
Professor  Dana's  easy  rhetoric  of  "  God  in  nature," 
which  he  has  endeavored  to  employ  against  the  author 
of  the  book,  there  could  be  really  no  essential  distinction 
between  the  natural  and  the  supernatural,  or  between 
creation  and  rest  from  creation,  between  origination  and 
subsequent  ongoing — but  of  that  more  fully  elsewhere.* 

*  A  clerical  critic  in  one  of  our  religious  newspapers,  asks  with  great 
simplicity,  and  yet  with  an  apparent  feeling  that  the  question  is  unanswer- 
able— "If  Moses  meant  growths,  births,  natures,  gradual  processions,  &c  , 
why  did  he  not  call  them  so  ?"  This  is  the  substance  of  the  question,  al- 
though we  do  not  give  the  exact  words.  Whj-, — we  would  say  to  our 
clerical  friend  (for  he  professes  to  be  a  warm  friend,  and  we  do  not  doubt 
his  sincerity,)  Moses  does  call  thera  so — exactly  so.  Root  meanings  of 
words  must  have  had  some  force  in  the  early  day,  if  they  ever  had  force 
at  all;  and  the  primary  ideas  of  the  Hebrew  words  Moses  employs  are  just 
the  ones  involved  in  this  question  of  yours.  Study  carefully  your  Hebrew 
Bible,  and  you  can  not  fail  to  see  it.  "  Let  the  earth  bring  forth,  and  the 
earth  brought  forth."  They  are  the  same  words  that  are  applied  to  vege- 
table and  animal  parturition  elsewhere.  In  their  radical  meanings  they 
imply  some  kind  of  birth  and  natural  growth,  as  much  as  the  language 
used  Gen.  iii,  18,— "Thorns  and  thistles  shall  it  bring farth  unto  thee."  In 
this  post-creative  act,  also,  was  there  something  miraculous;  the  earth 
would  not  have  fulfilled  the  curse  and  brought  forth  the  thorns  and  thistles 
(there  mentioned)  of  her  own  unvisitcd  energy,  or  by  the  old  nature  (then 
old,  we  mean,  but  once  new,)  which  she  had  received  on  the  third  day  of 
creation.  But  though  miraculous,  it  was  evidently  connected  with  a  natui-e 
still — a  process  of  birth  and  growth  divinely  and  miraculously  initiated  ^ 
but  a  growth,  a  birth,  a  nature  still, — for  all  these  words  and  ideas,  as  we 
have  elsewhere  most  abundantly  shown,  are  radically  the  same.  "  If 
Moses  meant  births,  growths,  natures,  why  did  he  not  call  them  so  ?''  He 
has  called  them  so,  we  say  again  to  our  anxious  friend.  That  is  the  very 
word  and  idea,  neither  more  nor  less.  "  These  are  the  fv/cdoth,"  he  says, 
"  the  Generations,  ysvetfeig  of  the  Heavens  and  the  Earth,"  Gen.  ii,  4. 
Examine  your  Lexicon  in  respect  to  the  meaning  of  the  verb  from  which 
this  noun  comes.  What  is  better,  take  your  Hebrew  Concordance,  and 
trace  it  in  all  its  applications,  and  see  if  you  can  discover  any  radical  dif- 
ference between  it  and  the  Greek  yi'vvojxai,  ysvvoiu,  (with  other  words 
of  the  same  family,)  and  the  Latin  nascor,  nafus  natura.     "Why  should 


GOD   IN   NATURE.  167 

We  allude  to  it  here  to  show  how  inconsistently  science 
may  sometimes  talk,  especially  when  it  turns  pious  and 
forgets  itself.  "  Let  the  earth  bring  forth," — "  Let  the 
waters  be  gathered  together,  and  let  the  dry  land  appear" 
—  these  passages  are  interpreted  in  the  book,  (whether 

we  be  wise  above  what  is  written  ?"  We  would  retort  the  language  cl 
our  friendly  interrogator.  But  the  word  is  not  now  so  taken  by  readers 
in  general,  it  may  be  said.  Goicrations,  as  there  used,  may  be  held  per- 
haps to  be  an  accommodation,  a  figure  of  speech,  a  comparison,  or  it  may 
be  explained  in  some  other  unmeaning  way.  The  same  method,  too,  may 
be  employed  to  take  all  significance  out  of  the  language  of  Job  and  the 
Psalmist,  especially  where  the  earth  is  said  "to  be  brought  forth"  and  the 
"  mountains  iu  be  borit," — in  which  expression  the  root  of  this  very  noun 
toledoth  is  thus  used  for  the  generations,  births,  natures  of  the  creative 
periods.  But  "why  should  we  be  wise  above  what  is  written,''  we  say  again, 
or  put  our  own  faded  abstractions,  our  own  lifeless  metaphysics,  on  these 
fresh  Mosaic  words,  and  then  cry  out  metaphysics  against  the  man  who 
attemj/Cs  to  restore  them.  It  dees  not  at  all  follow  because  we  now,  in 
the  old  age  and  dotage  as  it  were  of  language,  use  nature  and  similar  words 
for  anything  and  everything,  that  therefore  Moses  employed  toledoth  in 
the  same  loose  way,  or  meant  to  depart  (least  of  all  in  this  creative  ac- 
count) from  its  clear  radical  sense  of  one  thing,  or  one  state  of  things,  suc- 
cessively born,  or  generated  out  of  another.  And  yet  Moses  in  his  simpli- 
city, aud  those  who  thus  faithfully  interpret  his  language,  may  have  had 
as  high  and  as  pious  an  idea  of  the  divine  power,  the  divine  miraculous 
power,  originating  a  nature,  conti'olling  a  nature,  working  in,  upon,  or 
through  a  nature  previously  made,  as  those  over-wise  and  over-righteous 
critics  who  think  that  the  honor  of  the  Bible  and  of  the  author  of  the  Bible 
is  tarnished  by  the  use  of  any  such  phraseology. 

Those  who  woald  well  take  exceptions  here,  ought  carefully  to  inform 
themselves  in  respect  to  the  difference  between  the  ancient  and  modem 
modes  of  thinking.  Even  down  as  late  as  the  times  of  the  Christian 
Fathers,  there  is  a  style  of  language  which  sounds  strange  to  many.  It 
will  not  do  to  call  Augustine  a  heretic,  and  yet  he  sets  forth  the  creative 
successions  by  this  very  word  nalurcE.  From  our  self  sufficient  modem 
stand-point,  we  may  call  it  a  figure  of  speech,  or  skip  it  easily  over  in 
any  way  as  of  no  theological  or  exegetical  importance ;  but  he  used  it 
strictly  as  a  translation,  and  true  representative,  of  the  Greek  ySvjO'Si?, 
even  as  the  Greek  means  neither  more  nor  less  than  the  Hebrew  ninVlti. 
Had  our  translators  instead  of  it  used  births  or  natures,  they  would  have 
expressed  radically  no  other  idea. 


168  SCIENCE   ALARMED   AT  HERESY. 

correctly  or  not,)  as  denoting  prolonged  processes,  and 
successions,  to  which  we  can  give  no  other  name  than 
nature,  or  growth,  or  the  hirtli,  or  being  born  of  one  thing 
or  one  state  from  another.  It  is,  however,  with  the  most 
distinct  recognition,  derived  not  from  any  outside  philos- 
ophising, but  from  the  direct  Scripture  testimony,  that 
each  of  these  growths,  or  natures,  was  commenced  by 
the  supernatural  going  forth  of  the  Divine  Word  and 
Spirit,  with  a  new  command,  and  a  new  energy.  This  is 
the  (pijC/J  which  our  orthodox  Professor  regards  as  so  dan- 
gerous. He  brands  it  as  naturalism.  His  science, 
liberal  as  it  would  be  thought  to  be,  is  excessively 
alarmed  at  the  heresy,  and  hence  he  deems  it  his  pain- 
ful duty  to  Avarn  the  good  people  who  may  not  have  the 
science  and  experience  of  the  critic  in  such  matters, 
against  the  dangerous  infidel  tendency  of  the  work. 
This  might  seem  truly  ludicrous  to  those  who  well  under- 
stand the  theological  latitude  both  of  the  critic  and  the 
Review  through  which  he  gives  the  alarm  ;  but  we  would 
refer  to  it  here  as  a  beautiful  specimen  of  consistency. 
This  man  who  is  so  disturbed  for  the  cause  of  orthodoxy, 
when  one  finds  a  (puVi?,  or  nature,  in  the  Bible,  actually 
claims  for  Geology  the  honor  of  having  been  the  first  to 
discover  this  same  (puC'c  in  the  rocks,  or  as  he  calls  it, 
♦'  the  natural  in  creation"  !  It  can  only  be  explained  on 
the  ground  that  when  a  writer  has  no  other  or  higher 
motive  than  to  assail  a  fancied  adversary,  he  must  forget 
himself.  Consistency  becomes,  in  that  case,  a  lower 
virtue  which  he  cannot  be  expected  to  preserve. 

What  does  he  mean  by  "  the  natural  in  creation?" 
With  truly  intelligent  minds  this  whole  matter  of  natural- 
ism may  be  brought  to  a  short  and  decided  issue.    What 


WHAT  IS  MEANT  BY  THE  NATURAL  IN  CREATION  ?  169 

does  he  mean  by  "the  natural  in  creation,"  and  his 
empty  boast  of  its  having  been  first  discovered  by  Geo- 
logy ?  Is  it  a  nature  that  had  no  beginning — a  nature 
unoriginated,  unmade,  uncontrolled,  uninterrupted,  un- 
visiced  ?  That  were  indeed  an  atheism  at  which  Plato 
would  have  shuddered  —  an  atheism 

blacker  than  blackest  midnight.  Is  it,  on  the  other 
hand,  a  nature  which  God  created,  which  He  made  to  do 
just  what  He  had  eternally  foreordained  should  be  done, 
to  which  he  gave  laws  that  should  bring  out  in  chronolo- 
gical order  his  own  everlasting  ideas?  Is  it  a  nature 
that  had  its  birth  in  a  Divine  Word,  that  is  ever  and 
anon  quickened  by  a  new  Divine  Life,  that  both  in  its 
general  and  its  particular  ongoings,  is  visited  by  repeat- 
ed, oft-repeated,  Divine  interpositions  ?  Is  it  such  a  na- 
ture as  this  he  means  ?  Then  the  writer  is  defied  to  find 
language  in  which  it  can  be  more  clearly  set  forth  than 
it  IS  in  the  book  he  has,  either  so  ignorantly  or  so  per- 
versely, misrepresented  ? 

It  is  not  enough,  however,  for  him  to  brand  as  infidel, 
when  brought  out  as  an  interpretation  of  the  Bible,  that 
which  is  most  scientific  and  most  pious  when  found  written 
in  the  rocks.     The  religion  of  Geology  demands  a  further 
concession,  and  still  higher  honor,  and  so  the  Professor 
ventures  upon  another  assertion.     Not  only  has  "  Geo- 
logy first  discovered  the  natural  in  creation,"  but,  "  with 
rare  exceptions,  she  has  ever  admitted  the  supernatural." 
This  we  can  not  help  regarding  as  more  perilous  ground 
than  the  other,  although,  perhaps,  not  so  insulting  to  the 
Scriptures.     If  he  means  by  the  supernatural  some  far 
off  First  Cause  brought  in  as  a  logical  necessity,  or  some 


170      THE  SUPERNATURAL  IN  CREATION. 

prime  mover,  or  something  like  a  first  originating  power 
■without  which  we  can  not  reason  at  all  about  creation, 
the  proposition  is  hardly  worth  any  serious  notice.  Au- 
guste  Comte,  much  as  he  has  been  assailed  bj  inferior 
men  who  are  no  better  behevers  than  himself — Auguste 
Comte  would  admit  that.  The  author  of  The  Vestiges 
would  admit  all  that.  In  such  a  sense,  and  in  some  still 
nearer  senses,  he  willingly  concedes  the  supernatural. 

But  if,  taliing  it  in  its  true,  and  higher,  and  more 
special  sense,  the  reviewer  means  that  leading  geological 
minds  have  been  fond  of  the  idea  of  the  supernatural, 
that  they  have  not  preferred  to  explain  everything  by 
uninterrupted  natural  causality,  and  that  the  leading 
authority  among  them  does  not  regard  this  natural  caus- 
ation, as,  of  itself,  sufficient  to  explain  all  the  phenomena 
that  science  now  discovers  in  the  rocks  and  formations, 
—  if  he  means  this,  he  could  not  well  have  made  a  state- 
ment more  at  war  with  known  and  indisputable  facts. 
There  are  men  now  of  highest  name  in  the  science  who 
would  laugh  at  him  for  the  assertion,  if  so  made,  and  so 
understood  in  the  only  sense  that  gives  it  any  importance, 
especially  any  importance  in  the  present  argument. 

But  to  examine  the  position  more  upon  its  essential 
merits.  By  its  own  Baconian  boasting,  then,  science 
(we  mean  as  the  naturalist  employs  the  term)  can  never 
really  reach  the  supernatural.  Its  laws,  of  which  it 
talks  so  much,  are,  and  can  be,  only  generalizations  of 
facts  or  appearances.  Repeated,  or  usually  recurring 
facts,  make  settled  laws — that  is,  settled  in  science,  not 
in  re.  Unusual  facts  or  single  appearances  can  only 
suggest  some  law  of  less  frequent  occurrence,  or  less 
understood ;  and  so  they  all  may  be  natural ;  the  con- 


HIDDEN   WHEELS   AND   SPRINGS.  171 

trary  supposition  -would  be  unscientific,  and  even  irra- 
tional, as  far  as  science  is  concerned,  or  in  the  absence 
of  any  higher  light.  All  may  be  nature,  an  eternal 
causality,  as  far  as  she  knows  or  ever  can  know.  She 
goes  by  observation  and  experience, —  this  is  her  boast, 

—  and  there  can  be  no  scientific  proof,  or  even  ground 
of  belief,  that  any  fact  or  appearance  is  isolated,  or 
stands  out  single,  and  unconnected  with  the  combined 
causalities  of  the  universe  ;  —  there  can  be  no  scientific 
admission  of  this  except  from  the  experience  of  an  eter- 
nity. Revelation  and  all  a  priori  ideas  once  shut  out, 
there  is  no  evidencce  short  of  this  she  can  consistently 
admit.  There  may  be  hidden  springs  touched  once  in 
an  immensely  long  time.  She  has  no  right  to  deny  it. 
Nay,  more,  she  is  bound  to  assume  it,  as  long  as  she  re- 
mains truly  upon  her  own  ground.  The  more  usual  mani- 
festations of  forces  she  finds  in  the  coils  of  the  seemingly 
eternal  spring  she  is  seeking  to  unwind  ;  she  has  no  right, 
therefore,  to  say,  and,  when  not  "  driven"  by  something 
from  without  her  field,  she  never  does  say,  that  the  less 
usual  appearances,  even  the  very  rare  appearances,  are 
not  equally  so  contained  in  its  everlasting  folds.  Pro- 
fessor Dana  himself,  unphilosophical  and  even  unscien- 
tific as  he  is,  betrays  a  consciousness  of  this,  although 
his  eagerness  to  magnify  Geology  prevents  its  standing 
out  objectively  and  distinctively  before  him.  ^^ Admits 
the  supernatural"  !  he  says.  But  what  language  is  this 
for  science  ?  It  is  worse  than  the  Professor's  ^'■physical 
natm-e'' ;  that  was  simply  an  absurd  tautology  ;  this  is 
absurdity  itself.     Science  does  not  "  admif^;  she  proves 

—  such  is  her  claim.  She  discovers  ;  sometimes  she 
graciously  accejijts  —  as  Professor  Dana  accepts  the  Mo- 


172      WHAT  SCIENCE  SEES,  AND  HOW  SHE  SEES  IT. 

saic  account — but  admitting  looks  like  a  force  of  some 
kind,  an  influence  from  without.  It  suggests  the  thought 
of  a  reluctation  ;  —  it  has  something  of  the  appearance 
of  being  "  driven"  —  to  use  again  the  word  that  has 
aroused  so  much  indignation — or  at  least  of  "  floating" 
in  some  boat  carried  down  the  current  of  certain  opin- 
ions, higher  or  lower,  true  or  false,  which  are  not  science, 
nor  any  eSect  of  science,  but  belong  to  another  sphere. 

Let  everything  keep  its  own  place.  We  are  not  re- 
proaching science,  but  exposing  the  false  claims  of  some 
scientific  men.  Science  can  not  be  expected  to  see  what 
she  has  no  eyes  to  see.  She  makes  good  use  of  her  na- 
tural vision,  short  sighted  as  it  is,  when  she  confines  it  to 
her  own  field.  She  sees  appearances,  facts,  events  ; 
she  observes  how  they  come  and  go,  and  deduces  laws 
which  are  but  the  summings, — nothing  more, —  of  these 
her  observations.  Where  the  facts  are  numerous,  she 
has  a  very  strong  probability,  such  as  the  inhabitants  of 
Plato's  cave  might  have  deduced  respecting  the  laws  of 
the  shadows  that  were  ever  flitting  across  the  rear  wall 
of  their  prison.  Where  the  facts  are  few,  she  must  do 
the  best  she  can,  and  make  a  theory ;  where  she  has  but 
one,  she  must  guess  and  wait  for  more,  or  consult  some 
higher  authority  of  philosophy  or  revelation  in  respect  to 
it ;  but,  as  far  as  she  is  concerned,  and  in  her  own  pro- 
vince of  observation  and  induction,  she  must  ever,  as  we 
have  said,  assume  that  there  is,  somehow  and  somewhere, 
a  law,  a  natural  law,  for  every  phenomenon,  and  so  she 
can  not  get  out  of  nature, —  she  can  not  look  out  of  na- 
ture—  she  can  not  find  the  supernatural.  But  science, 
we  repeat,  is  not  to  blame  for  this.  We  can  not  expect 
to  see  these  things  through  her  lens,  any  more  than  we 


NATURAL  SCIENCE  A  SEEKER  OF  NATURAL  LAW.   173 

could  rationally  hope  to  discover  spirits  in  the  crucible, 
or  see  angels  through  the  telescope. 

Natural  science,  then,  it  can  not  be  too  firmly  main- 
tained, both  for  the  cause  of  science  as  well  as  for  that 
of  all  sound  thinking,  is  a  seeker  of  law,  of  natural  law, 
in  her  own  sense  of  the  term,  as  a  generalizing  of  appear- 
ances ever  assumed  to  have  come  from  one  universal 
force.  Atheism  can  not  exclude  from  her  brotherhood. 
Piety  can  give  no  title  to  admission.  Auguste  Comte 
would  have  a  fair  right  to  a  seat  in  any  convention.  A 
man  may  deny  the  existence  of  God,  and  be  just  as  sci- 
entific as  the  most  devout  Professor.  Experience  has 
shown  this  by  most  abundant  evidence,  if  there  were  not 
the  strongest  a  priori  proof  of  the  fact  in  the  very  laws 
of  ideas.  Science,  natural  science,  is  a  hunter  of  natural 
causalities  ;  that  is  her  business,  and  she  can  never 
legitimately  find  anything  else.  If  she  does  so,  it  is  out 
of  her  line  ;  she  "  admits"  it  from  some  influence  more  or 
less  distinctly  felt,  of  some  higher  authority.  She  "  ac- 
cepts" it,  more  or  less  willingly,  but  can  never  be  said 
to  discover  it,  without  violating,  or,  at  least,  ignoring  for 
the  time,  her  o^vn  essential  law.  We  want  no  better 
proof  of  this  than  Professor  Dana's  own  article.  Will 
he  pretend  that  he  has  not  been  influenced  by  the  sound 
theology  of  New-Haven,  and  the  old  standard  ortho- 
doxy of  Andover ;  or,  in  other  words,  that  the  "  cur- 
rents" setting  round  these  venerable  institutions  have 
not  "  driven"  his  own  geological  boat  in  a  pious  direc- 
tion, it  might  not,  perhaps,  have  taken  in  Germany  or 
France  ? 

Now  we  have  no  fear  that  the  drift  of  these  remarks 
can  be  mistaken.     It  is  not  denied  that  scientific  men 

15* 


174        FAITH   A   SUPERNATURAL   STATE   OF  MIND. 

]iave  maintained  the  supernatural  truly,  religiously,  bibli- 
cally, in  its  real  and  divine  sense.  There  have  been 
those  who  were  scientific  men,  and,  at  the  same  time, 
something  more,  and  better.  There  have  been  many 
such,  we  rejoice  to  say  it,  who  have  found  the  superna- 
tural, and  recognized  it  among  their  scientific  discove- 
ries, but  not  from  them.  There  was  something  better, 
higher,  yea,  stronger  than  science,  that  led  them  to  it. 
It  was  a  mental  temperament,  original  in  some  respects, 
but  more  truly  produced  by  revelation  either  in  its  direct 
or  social  influence.  It  was  devout  religious  feeling  which 
never  would  have  been  developed,  to  say  the  least,  with- 
out revelation  in  some  form.  That  of  which  we  speak  is  of 
itself  a  supernatural  state  of  mind,  acting  as  well  as  acted 
upon,  and  leading  men  to  believe  truly  in  such  a  reve- 
lation as  the  great  first  supernatural  fact  of  facts,  the 
solid  ground  of  credence  in  all  other  supernatural.  The 
evidence  of  this  suggests  itself  in  a  supposition  which 
^omes  home  to  every  mind.  Let  revelation  die  out  of  the 
souls  of  men  (if  it  ever  can  die  out,)  and  how  long  would 
science  find  the  supernatural  ?  In  certain  regions  the  old 
•habit  of  believing  might  retain  some  of  its  power  for  a 
generation  perhaps ;  in  others,  we  may  say,  the  experi- 
ment has,  to  some  extent,  been  already  tried.  There 
are  parts  of  the  world,  there  are  schools  of  thinking, 
where  faith  in  any  objective  or  supernatural  revelation 
has  in  the  main  already  died  out.  They  are  able  schools, 
too,  most  scientific  thinkers,  as  good  thinkers  as  can  be 
found  among  us  ;  but  where  do  they  find  the  superna- 
tural ?  As  far  as  science  is  concerned,  or  their  rank  in 
•science,  these  foreign  free-thinking  naturalists  ought  to 
be,  at  least,  as  pious  as  Professor  Silliman  or  Professor 


RESERVE  LAWS  OF  NATURE.         175 

Dana.  But  "  faith  comes  from  hearing,"  the  hearing 
both  of  the  ear  and  the  heart.  "  Bj  faith  we  understand 
that  the  worlds  were  built  by  the  Word  of  God ;"  by 
faith  we  find  the  true  supernatural, —  by  faith,  itself  a 
supernatural  state  of  soul  as  well  as  a  supernatural  gift. 
Even  the  false  or  superstitious  behef  in  the  supernatural 
came  originally  from  the  same  divine  source.  It  is  an 
echo,  broken,  indeed,  into  wild  and  wizard  sounds,  yet 
still  an  echo  from  the  earliest  revelations  made  to  the 
human  race.  Most  true  it  is,  therefore,  that  science, 
natural  science,  proceeding  on  its  own  fundamental  prin- 
ciples, can  never  get  out  of  nature,  unless  "  driven"  by 
some  power  lying  fairly  beyond  its  own  domain. 

We  dwell  on  this  because  the  position  is  a  cardinal 
one,  and  it  is  of  the  utmost  importance  to  keep  separate 
the  bounds  of  ideas  that  are  so  absurdly  jumbled  to- 
gether. We  should  closely  distinguish  between  what 
may  be  found  by  some  scientific  men,  according  to  the 
latitude  in  which  they  live,  or  the  outside  theological 
currents  in  which  their  "  boat  is  floating,"  and  that  which 
is  found  by  science  per  se.  Prof.  Dana  should  be  care- 
ful here.  With  all  his  fine  talk  about  "  God  in  nature," 
and  "  laws  and  types,"  he  may,  if  he  lets  go  revelation 
as  the  only  revealer  of  the  supernatural — itself  a  super- 
natural work — or  treats  it  as  a  secondary  authority, 
have  a  development  theory  before  he  is  aware  of  it. 
That  is,  for  all  he  knows,  or  for  all  his  science  can  affirm 
or  deny,  there  may  be  reserve  laws  of  nature,  which,  in 
this  vast  machinery  of  law  and  types,  may  be  represented 
by  little  cogs  or  springs  going  round  and  round  unseen 
by  the  sharpest  science,  b^ause  they  are  touched,  per- 
haps, in  the  revolution  of  some  greater  wheels,  only  once 


176  ALL   GENERATION  MYSTERIOrS. 

in  ten  thousand  or  ten  million  years,  but  which,  never- 
theless, when  the  clock  strikes  the  true  time  of  the  mag- 
nus  annus,  may  bring  out  species  from  species  just  as 
certainly  as  the  ordinary  wheels  that  go  round  visibly  in 
our  times,  or  the  less  ordinary  whose  movements  we  can 
trace,  bring  out  individuals  from  individuals ; — there  be- 
ing no  more,  or,  we  may  rather  say,  no  less  a  priori 
mystery  in  the  one  form  of  generation  than  in  the  other. 
"  Knowest  thou  the  way  of  the  spirit,  or  how  the  bones 
do  grow  in  the  womb  of  her  that  is  with  child  ?"  No- 
thing can  be  more  absurd  than  the  claim  that  any  mere 
science  can  disprove  the  fact  of  such  a  more  interior  law 
in  nature,  or  of  such  a  rarer  and  more  occult  form  of 
generation.  But  do  you  believe  it  ?  it  may  be  retorted 
on  the  author.  Alas,  we  have  little  or  no  belief  about 
it,  unless  as  we  can  get  some  glimpse  of  evidence  from 
a  divine  revelation.  "  We  are  but  of  yesterday  and  know 
nothing."  Individuals,  species,  and  all,  came  from  the 
creating  will  and  power  of  God.  That  is  quite  clear 
from  the  Scriptures.  There  is  also  pretty  fair  evidence, 
if  we  can  interpret  language  at  all,  that  this  creation  of 
vegetables,  and  of  the  lower  animals  at  least,  was  some 
how  connected  with  a  new  word  or  command,  and  a  new 
power  given  to  the  then  nature,  or  the  earth.  But  which 
law  of  generation  God  saw  fit  in  the  first  place  to  create, 
(for  in  spite  of  Mr.  Lord  and  Prof.  Dana,  we  must  still 
continue  to  regard  the  creation  of  laws,  principles,  and 
ideas,  as  sound  common  sense  as  well  as  sound  metaphy- 
sics,) or  whether  he  created  many  such  laws  acting  suc- 
cessively or  concurrently,  there  are  the  scantiest  means 
of  knowing  from  revelation,  and  none  at  all  from  science. 
God  made  the  plants  and  lower  animals  by  some  created 


TWO   IDEAS   OF  DEVELOPMENT.  177 

law,  or  laws,  of  generation,  connected  originally  with 
the  earth.  This  is  all  we  truly  know.  Any  theory  of 
generation  that  is  consistent  with  this,  or  does  not  con- 
tradict this,  a  man  may  orthodoxly  and  Biblically  hold. 

We  care  nothing  about  "  The  Vestiges  of  Creation," 
or  its  degree  of  piety.  It  is  the  famous  book,  we  know, 
of  which  some  clergymen  are  so  afraid — a  fear  that  does 
not  argue  much  for  their  firm  belief  in  the  Scriptures — 
and  on  which  certain  scientific  men  of  a  certain  calibre, 
and  placed  in  positions  peculiarly  favorable  to  a  kind  of 
orthodoxy,  are  ever  and  anon  trying  their  steel.  It 
teaches  development,  they  say,  and  that  is  impious. 
But  what  do  they  know  about  it  ?  If  the  author  of  that 
book  means  an  eternal  development  which  God  did  not 
in  time  originate,  and  from  time  to  time  control,  then  we 
refute  him  very  easily — not  from  science,  but  from 
Scripture.  Goliah  as  he  is,  or  is  said  to  be,  with  that 
shepherd's  sling  even  a  Sabbath-school  child  can  over- 
throw him.  But  if  it  be  development  without  this  impious, 
unscriptural  idea, — if  it  be  development  as  a  more  remote 
and  interior  form  of  generation  simply,  then  his  theory, 
as  a  theory,  is  as  good  as  theirs,  and  they  cannot  refute 
him  from  any  science  built  on  present  observation.  Their 
mode  of  attempting  it  is  certainly  very  curious.  These 
hidden  wheels,  or  cogs,  or  springs,  of  development  have 
not  acted,  or  even  been  visible  during  their  inch  of  time 
and  space,  and  therefore,  say  they,  there  are  no  such 
wheels.  God  could  not  make  them ;  for  such  a  creation 
of  laws  and  principles  is  all  Platonic  nonsense.  Creation, 
they  hold,  is  ever  of  hard  matter  made  right  out  and  out, 
— of  matter  in  some  way,  hard  or  soft,  of  a  certain  density, 
of  a  certain  shape,  of  a  certain  extent,  and  in  a  certain 


178       THE   REAL   BEING  —  MATTER   THE   SHADOW. 

place.  In  other  words,  it  is  a  creation  of  death  before  life, 
inert  mass  before  organizing  law,  eidolon  before  idea^  effect 
before  cause,  or  shadow  before  substance  ; — unless  our 
consistent  nominalists  should  say,  as  they  doubtless 
would,  that  hard  matter  is  the  real  being  (to  ovtw?  ov) 
next  in  birth  to  deity,  whilst  life,  and  law,  and  idea,  have 
but  dependent,  shadowy,  and  unreal  existence.* 

But  there  are  no  such  wheels.  Of  that  they  are  certain, 
for  the  best  of  all  reasons  —  they  have  never  seen  them. 
What  is  more,  they  have  never  seen,  they  say,  a  trace 
or  vestige  of  them — the  reason  of  which  we  may  give  in 
another  chapter.  They  go  wholly  by  experience  and 
induction.  The  clock  has  not  struck  in  their  day  —  their 
minute  we  might  rather  say — nor  for  many  a  day  before 
them ;  in  other  words,  they  know  no  other  nature,  and 
therefore,  there  is  no  other  nature  —  never  has  been, 
never  can  be.f     And  so  they  claim  the  merit  of  having 

'^  Should  any  be  disposed  to  come  half  way,  and  say  that  laws  and  prin- 
ciples are  in  their  being  and  origin  independent  realities,  but  have  not  ex- 
istence in  time  before  the  material  things  or  movements,  manifest  or  con- 
cealed, of  which  they  are  the  organic  laws  or  principles, — it  would  be  suf- 
ficient for  our  argument.  They  are  before  the  matter,  then,  in  the  order  of 
being,  if  not  of  time.  They  are  independent  existences  that  do  not  groiv 
out  of  the  matter,  but  come  into  it  from  some  other  source,  or  are  put  into 
it  by  a  higher  Power  who  made  them  as  really  as  he  made  the  matter, — 
and  made  them,  too,  of  immensely  greater  variety  and  higher  workman- 
ship. This  is  sufficient.  In  this  sense  they  are  creations,  true  independent 
creations,  of  a  higher  order  than  the  matter,  and  from  which  (as  we  go  far- 
ther and  say)  the  matter  derives,  if  not  its  substance  as  matter,  yet  that 
organization  which  makes  each  material  thing  that  is,  what  it  is. 

t  Had  our  present  olam,  or  the  vhole  day  of  the  race  been  a  single  revo- 
lution of  the  earth  upon  its  axis  (a  supposition  neither  incredible  nor  absurd, 
since  the  race  might  have  been  made  so  as  to  live  as  much  in  such  a  period 
as  in  the  one  allotted,)  then  these  immutable  laws  of  science  would,  on  such 
a  view,  have  been  altogether  different.  The  natural, or  what  is  the  natural 
now,  would  become  the  supernatural,  because  the  scientific  men  of  such 
an  age  had  seen  nothing  like  it.    The  generation  of  a  tree,  or  its  revival 


SCIENTIFIC   ORTHODOXY  DUE  TO   THE   CHURCH.    179 

slain  The  Vestiges  of  Creation,  when,  in  fact,  it  is  their 
cowardice,  or  their  prudence,  that  stops  short  of  conclu- 
sions following  plausibly  from  their  boasted  premises, 
and  which  that  writer  has  had  the  boldness  to  carry  out. 
Their  "  floating  boat"  is  driven  timidly  in  by  currents 
which  his  stronger  oar  enables  him  to  stem.  Their  ortho- 
doxy here  is  not  owing  to  any  science  so  much  as  to  other 
influences,  for  which,  if  they  have  any  real  piety,  they 
should  thank  God  and  the  Church.  It  is  the  Bible-nur- 
tured and  Church-nurtured  belief  in  a  supernatural  reve- 
lation that  has  made  them  find  the  supernatural  where 
the  author  of  The  Vestiges  has  not  discovered  it,  and 
where  their  Baconian  induction  never  would  have  discov- 
ered it,  never  could  have  discovered  it,  whilst  remaining 
true  to  its  own  boasted  fundamental  law  of  laws.  The 
Professors  of  this  pious  naturalism  wofully  deceive  them- 
selves when  they  thus  attempt  to  patronize  the  Scriptures, 
and  give  them  the  benefit  of  their  discoveries.  It  may 
be  said,  too,  that  they  fight  The  Vestiges  of  Creation  in 
very  much  the  same  feehng  that  leads  men  in  the  Church, 
whose  orthodoxy  is  but  a  shell,  and  whose  position,  there- 
fore, lies  nearest  to  the  infidel  camp,  to  be  ever  writing 
books  on  the  evidences  of  Christianity,  and  assailing  the 
infidels.  These  fight  vahantly  against  Hobbes  and  Paine ; 
they  are  ever  running  a  tilt  against  Hume  and  Voltaire  ; 
when  the  earnest  beHever  looks  upon  Hobbes,  and  Paine, 
and  Hume,  as  being  actually  of  great  service  to  the 
Church,  by  showing  men — at  least  all  thinking  men — 
•what  they  must  come  to  if  they  will  not  docilely  and 

after  a  season  of  torpor,  or  a  new  tree  springing  out,  either  like  or  unlike 
the  old,  would  be  as  incredible  ai  anything  we  now  denounce  under  the 
name  of  development. 


180    POWER  OF   "  THE  VESTIGES"  — WHY  IT  LIVES. 

reverently,  and  most  thankfully  receive  the  Scriptures. 
And  so  they  slay  The  Vestiges,  these  valiant  men ! — 
yea,  thrice  do  they  shay  the  slain,  and  yet  the  ghost  will 
not  be  laid.  The  book  still  lives  and  has  a  deep  hold 
upon  the  common  mind.  The  reason  is,  that  whatever 
may  be  its  errors,  it  presents  that  thought  which — reve- 
lation gone,  or  once  supposed  to  be  gone, —  presses  so 
heavily  upon  the  soul.  It  is  the  thought  to  which 
every  true  thinking  man  feels  he  must  come  if  he  has  to 
give  up  the  Bible.  He  may  dread  it  as  a  sane  mind 
sometimes  dreads  the  horrors  of  apprehended  insanity, 
but  he  knows  of  no  true  security  against  it  unless  it  be  a 
voice  from  heaven  believed  through  a  supernatural  faith 
whose  essence,  incipiency,  and  power,  is  heaven's  own 
gift  readily  and  lovingly  bestowed  upon  all  devout  and 
docile  minds.  It  is  the  thought  so  feared  by  some,  so 
loved  by  others,  because  it  is  so  natural, —  the  thought 
that  perhaps  all  is  natnre,  and  nature  all, —  eternal  law, 
eternal  nature  —  unmodified  by  anything  that  has  ever 
come  into  it  from  any  higher  world  of  being.  When 
faith  in  revelation  once  wholly  departs  from  an  age,  or 
a  country,  or  an  individual,  there  will  not  long  remain 
any  belief  in  the  supernatural.  Geology  can  not  cure 
this,  even  if  it  does  not  aid  it.  Science  can  not  help  the 
matter.  Its  times  are  too  short.  Long  as  they  may 
seem,  as  compared  with  shorter  cycles,  yet  when  reck- 
oned on  the  greater  scale  they  too  vanish  like  passing 
shadows.  On  this  illimitable  field  of  an  ever  outstretch- 
ing eternity,  or  olam  of  olams,  the  geological  epochs  dis- 
appear like  the  solar  days  of  the  literalist.  A  stand 
point  may  be  assumed  from  which  the  difiercnce  between 
them  becomes  too  small  for  metaphor.    The  aeonic  and 


THE  GREATER  DURATIONS.  181 

the  solar  times  come  to  seem  alike  literal,  alike  figura- 
tive, alike  evanescent,  when  regarded  as  measures  of  the 
still  greater  cycles  in  the  kingdom  of  all  eternities. 
Alas,  we  are  lost !  In  such  a  survey  of  an  immeasurable 
universe  of  space  and  time,  we  can  have  no  assurance, 
no  hope,  except  in  a  voice  from  the  highest  heavens,  a 
voice  of  God  coming  very  nigh  unto  us,  speaking  by  di- 
rect communication  of  mind  to  mind,  whether  primarily 
or  through  mediate  minds,  instead  of  the  ever  uncertain 
vestiges  of  nature,  or  the  illegible  book  of  the  rocks  which 
some  are  so  fond  of  placing  in  rhetorical  comparison  with 
Heaven's  written  volume. 

But  this  whole  question  of  the  greater  durations,  lies 
away  beyond  the  fair  field  of  scientific  induction.  The 
scientific  naturalist  examines  present  appearances.  He 
examines  them  very  carefully.  This,  he  says,  was  be- 
fore that.  He  is  pretty  safe  in  saying,  that  if  there  has 
been  no  disturbance — a  caveat  he  can  never  wisely  ne- 
glect—  the  lower  deposit,  or  the  lower  fossil,  most  pro- 
bably went  to  its  rest  before  the  upper.  When  he  would 
assign  periods,  however,  he  measures  the  times  of  nature 
then  by  its  movements  noiv.  But  this  is  all  a  guess. 
He  can  never  get  an  expression,  or  a  formula,  for  a  time, 
except  through  a  space,  or  effects  appearing  in  such 
space ;  but  what  was  once  the  rate  of  that  efficiency  he 
can  not  know.  There  is  no  hypothesis  that  he  can 
prove,  none  that  he  can  render  probable.  The  time  pen- 
dulum, the  comparative  time  pendulum  (for  all  time  mea- 
sured by  space  is  thus  comparative,)  varies  in  its  mea- 
suring movements  so  that  the  variation  is  perceptible 
even  on  the  narrow  field  of  this  earth  ;  it  changes  with 
the  latitude ;  the  sun  minute  and  the  same  pendulum 

16 


182  THE  SURE   WORD   OF   THE   LORD. 

minute  do  not  always  and  everywhere  agree.  Even  the 
sun  minute  is  shown  by  certain  discoveries  in  astronomy 
to  be  not  a  constant  quantity.  Our  years  vary,  and  with 
them  all  subordinate  degrees  of  all  subordinate  arcs. 
Now,  if  this  be  true,  as  we  may  say,  right  around  us,  in 
phenomena  that  come  home  to  the  observations  of  our 
own  fleeting  sense,  or  our  own  fleeting  historical  reminis- 
cences, Avhat  calculus  of  variations  shall  be  applied  to 
time  and  causal  succession  (the  only  real  measurement 
of  time)  in  those  far  ofi"  regions  of  space,  and  those  im- 
measurable remotenesses  of  eternity,  where  the  imagina- 
tion utterly  faints,  and  even  reason  reels  and  staggers 
Hke  the  inebriate  in  his  delirium.  Even  the  Koran  here 
is  better  for  us,  has  more  light  for  us,  than  science. 
"  We  flee  for  refuge  to  the  King  of  the  Worlds,  the  Lord 
of  the  day-break."  But  we  have  something  better  than 
either.  It  is  the  sure  Word  of  the  Lord,  revealing  the 
true  supernatural,  revealing  the  creative  process,  whether 
it  be  of  all  worlds,  or  of  our  own  Avorld,  whether  of  all 
times,  or  of  our  own  olam,  whether  of  the  great  cosmical 
principium,  or  any  nearer  beginning  on  our  own  earth  — 
revealing  just  what  God  deems  best  for  us  to  know  of 
earthly  or  mundane  origin, — above  all  reveahng  Himself, 
as  having  his  abode  in  "  Light  unapproachable  and  full 
of  glory,"  and  yet  "his  peoples'  dwelling  place  in  all 
generations."  It  is  this  Word  of  the  Lord,  faithfully 
interpreted,  heartily  believed,  and  placed  in  its  proper 
rank,  before  all  science,  and  all  philosophy  —  it  is  this, 
and  this  alone,  that  will  efiectually  slay  "  The  Vestiges," 
and  all  other  forms  of  naturaUsm  that  come,  whether  in- 
nocently or  not,  from  the  modern  extravagant  boasting, 
and  extravagant  estimation  of  physical  science.    For  it 


THE  REAL  NATURALISM.  183 

is  this  spirit,  more  than  any  particular  difficulties  now 
and  then  raised  by  seience,  that  is  to  be  dreaded.  It  is 
this  putting  nature  and  the  Bible  on  a  seeming  par ;  a 
practice  of  which  some  are  so  fond,  though  all  the  real 
deference  is  in  reality  paid  to  science  in  every  case  of 
seeming  collision.  It  is  this  patronizing  parallel,  now  so 
commonly  run  between  the  "  two  books,"  as  they  are 
styled,  "  the  book  of  Nature  and  the  book  of  Revela- 
tion," and  of  which  we  have  such  a  fine  specimen  at  the 
close  of  Professor  Dana's  article.  These  are  the  things 
most  hostile  to  the  Bible,  most  injurious  to  a  true  and 
hearty  faith.     This  is  the  real  naturalism. 


184   ORIGIN   UNKNOWN   EXCEPT  FROM  REVELATION. 


CHAPTER  VII. 


WE  KNOW  NOTHING  OF  ORIGIN  EXCEPT  FROM  A  DIVINE 
REVELATION. 

The  Vestiges  of  Creation —  Who  Killed  the  3fonster  ? — Indi- 
vidual  Generation  as  Mysterious  as  the  Generic — Revela- 
tion itself  the  Highest  Supernatural —  Why  should  toe  he 
afraid  of  the  Natural  in  Creation  ? — Animalcidce — Agas- 
siz's  Doctrine  of  Man — The  Primus  Homo — Science  Oc- 
cupied with  what  is,  and  how  it  is — The  Cosmical  Move- 
ment— Science  does  not  take  it  iiito  Account — Hypotheti- 
cal Discussion  between  the  Vestigian  and  the  Anti-vesti- 
gian — Nature^s  Gestation  long,  her  Births  sudden  and 
complete — Doctrine  of  Types — No  Meaning  in  the  Lan- 
guage as  used  by  some  Scientific  Men — The  Atheism  of 
"  The  Vestiges, ^^  in  what  it  truly  consists. 

We  KNOW   NOTHING  OF   ORIGIN  EXCEPT   FROM   A   DIVINE 

REVELATION.  This  we  would  take  as  the  motto,  not  only 
of  the  present  chapter,  but  of  all  that  we  have  written 
on  this  and  kindred  subjects.  God  may  make  things 
directly,  or  he  may  make  natures,  laws,  etc.,  through 
which  things  and  phenomena  are  produced,  or  he  may 
combine  both  methods,  and  work  by  them  concurrently 
or  successively.  We  know  here  only  as  he  has  told  us. 
In  pursuing  this  theme,  the  reader  will  pardon  us  for 
dwelling  a  little  longer  on  this  famous  book  entitled  The 
Vestiges  of  Creation.     The  bugbear  that  has  been  made 


WHO  KILLED  THE  VESTIGES  ?         185 

ofit  in  the  religious  world,  the  dishonor  which  the  alarm 
about  It  has  east  upon  our  faith  in  the  Bible,  the  unfair 
and  disreputable  efforts  to  excite  odium  against  certain 
opinions  hj  connecting  them  with  this  unpopular  name, 
a  1  demand  some  further  consideration  of  the  grounds  on 
which  1    IS  assailed,  and  especially  of  the  manner  in 
which  others  are  assailed  under  cover  of  a  protest  against 
It     Aside  from  its  fairer  and  more  effective  theolo<^ical 
opponents,  certain  men  of  science*  have  felt  it  their  Inte- 
rest to  keep  up  a  batrachian  clamor  about  the  honor  of 
slajing  the  monster.     Who  killed  the  Vestiges  ?  may 
come,  in  time,  to  excite  as  much  interest  as  the  famou. 
•luestion  of  the  nursery  book  with  which  we  are  all  famil- 
iar.    The  author,  not  being  a  man  of  science,  can  not 
engage  scientifically  in  this  melee;    but  having  some 
general  information  on  such  subjects,  and  a  little  reading 
m  the  Scriptures,  he  would  respectfully  venture  the  opin- 
ion, as  one  among  many  others,  that  this  terrible  book 
must  be  overthrown  by  the  Scriptures,  or  not  at  all.     If 
the  Bible  does  not  refute  it,  or  furnish  any  means  of  re- 
futing It,  then  its  doctrines  should  not  be  the  cause  of 
any  great  alarm.     They  become  in  that  case  indifferent 
to  a  true  faith,  whatever  aspect  they  may  assume.    Now 
^iside  from  what  a  supernatural  revelation  may  affirm  of 
hese  primoi-dial  matters,  all  that  we  can  say  with  any 
tolerable  safety  is,  that  a  certain  theory  of  generation 
may  be  true,  or  it  may  not  be  true  ;  or  it  may  be  partly 

wrUilil  o?R '?  Tr,,''"""  '"''''  ''^  '*^""^  "'"  "'^  '"Sl^-^^'  '"e^Peot  of  the 
vn  .ng,  of  Hugh  M.ller.     His  attack  upon  the  Vestiges  w.s  the  most  ef 

'ect:ve,  as  combining  more  of  philosophy  and  theolo^v  than  c  n  be  fo„fd 
u    ny  othe.  scentific  argument.    Although  we  do  nil  whollj    gree  wi  h 

■n  rSLj^rr^  '''  ''  --'-  -'''''  ^^"-  ^--  ^-^  ^e^as  Z 

16* 


186  SCIENCE   CAN   NOT   FIND   OKIGIN. 

true  and  partly  false  ;  or  the  -whole  region  of  speculation 
may  be  regarded  as  a  land  of  shadows  of  which  we  know 
less  than  we  know  of  the  constitution  of  the  monstrous 
shapes  that  go  under  the  name  of  nebulre  in  some  late 
maps  of  the  astronomical  heavens.  In  other  words,  sci- 
ence can  no  more  disprove  than  she  can  prove  any  such 
theory  of  origin.  Both  sides  of  such  questions,  we  ven- 
ture timidly  to  think,  lie  out  of  her  clear  domain  of  ob- 
served facts  and  laws  generalized  therefrom.  To  speak 
with  any  certainty  here,  as  science,  she  must  have  had 
an  immensely  greater  space  for  her  observations,  and  an 
immensely  greater  time  for  her  inductive  experience  ; 
unless  she  insists  upon  intuitions,  or  something  like  a  priori 
ideas  which  must  not  be  contradicted ;  and  then  she  is 
clearly  out  of  her  record.  There  are  some  such  a  priori 
ideas,  or  laws  of  thinking,  that  have  a  bearing  upon  these 
questions,  but  science  has  nothing  to  do  with  them ;  she 
does  not  acknowledge  them  ;  she  regards  them  as  sha- 
dowy and  unreal  as  compared  with  her  own  "  exactness." 
>So  that  we  may  safely  say,  that  the  author  of  The  Ves- 
tiges has  a  science  as  good  as  that  of  Professor  Dana,  and 
we  think  the  theology  of  the  book  will  also  present  a  fair 
comparison.*  The  superiority,  however,  in  this  latter 
aspect  may  be  freely  given  to  the  Yale  College  authority, 
if  he  will  only  frankly  admit  that  his  pious  notions  may 
have  had  their  birth  in  his  Scriptural  education,  rather 
than  in  his  geological  and  conchological  researches. 

*  It  is  a  number  of  years  since  we  read  tins  book.  Tlie  impression  left 
iipon  the  mind  was  not  favorable  to  its  piety.  It  appeared  to  us  decidedly 
anti-biblical  in  its  tone  and  spirit.  Its  style,  both  of  thought  and  expres- 
t^ion,  is  very  different  from  that  of  the  Old  Testament.  It  does  not  talk 
like  Moses.  If  we  may  judge,  however,  from  its  very  confident  manner, 
eo  much  resembling  that  of  certain  other  productions  of  a  similar  Baconian 
peaus,  it  must  certainly  be  considered  a  work  of  respectable  science. 


FAITH   NOT   AFRAID   OF  NATUIIALISM.  187 

But  to  keep  to  the  issue  we  have  presented.  If  the 
Scriptures  teach  anything  of  origin,  that  is  conclusive  for 
the  believer.  He  sits  clown  to  the  study  of  them,  know- 
ing nothing  as  far  as  the  facts  to  be  revealed  are  con- 
cerned, and  prepared  to  receive  whatever  they  may 
teach, —  even  should  it  be  found  that  they  reveal  some- 
thing like  a  development  doctrine  in  some  form,  or  after 
some  of  the  varied  uses  of  that  wide  and  much  abused 
word.  For  development  is  simply  the  outgoing  of  one 
existence,  whether  individual  or  generic,  from  another 
existence  in  which  the  first  is  supposed  to  be  contained 
or  wrapped  up.  Such  a  development  may  be  single 
and  almost  immediate,  or  it  may  be  varied  and  multifold. 
It  may  have  one,  or  more,  or  many  supernatural  begin- 
nings, with  ongoings  after  each  determined  by  laws 
which  God  has  made  to  do  that  very  thing  just  lioiv,  and 
H^lien,  and  where  he  has  foreordained  it  should  be  done. 
Thus  should  the  Scriptures  say,  "  Let  the  earth  bring 
forth,"  "  Let  the  waters  bring  forth,"  he  will  not  be 
frightened  by  it,  or  set  himself  to  work  to  devise  some 
way  in  which  he  may  consult  the  honor  of  the  Scriptures 
by  relieving  them  of  this  odious  appearance  of  natural- 
ism. He  will  not  attempt  to  be  wise  above  what  is 
written,  if  he  can  only  fairly  get  its  meaning.  He  will 
frankly  admit  the  fallibility  of  his  own  particular  inter- 
pretations ;  but  the  principle  he  will  never  surrender  — 
the  principle  that  we  know  nothing  on  these  subjects  ex- 
cept what  we  may  get  from  the  divine  teachings,  given 
to  us  in  such  way,  and  after  such  measure,  as  the  divine 
wisdom  may  prescribe.  Even  should  the  Scriptures 
.seem  to  teach  a  growth,  a  nature,  or  what  some  would 
call  a  development  in  its  narrower  or  wider  senses,  the 


188   REVELATION  ITSELF  THE  GREAT  SUPERNATURAL. 

reception  of  it  is  still  as  much  a  matter  of  faith  as  though 
it  had  disclosed  an  instantaneous  transition  from  not-being 
to  perfect  or  finished  being,  or  a  succession  yet  consum- 
mated in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  or  in  twentj-four  se- 
conds, or  twenty-four  hours,  or  six  indefinite  periods, — 
or  had  revealed  to  him  any  other  method  in  this  unknown 
and  unknowable  region.  It  satisfies  the  true  believer 
either  way.  The  mere  fact  of  a  revelation  from  God  of 
what  is  otherwise  inscrutably  hidden,  is  the  great  super- 
natural for  him,  the  w^arrant  for  believing  in  all  other 
supernatural.  Has  a  voice  truly  come  to  him  from  the 
All-knowing  ?  Then  its  revelations  as  to  the  origin  of 
lower  things  will  have  for  his  faith  enough  of  other  su- 
pernatural, whether  that  supernatural  is  presented  in  the 
origination  of  the  general  order,  or  orders,  of  vegetable 
and  lower  animal  life,  with  the  creation,  at  the  same  time, 
of  laws  and  types  for  their  development, —  or  is  taught 
as  coming  more  specially  in  at  the  generic  birth,  or  spe- 
cific making,  as  some  would  say,  of  every  species  of  ani- 
mation hy  itself,  or  of  each  individual  progenitor  of  such 
species  by  itself,  from  the  "  great  whales"  (which  the 
Bible  seems  to  speak  of  as  a  special  formation)  down  to 
the  lowest  and  most  invisible  forms  of  the  million-formed 
animalculse  that  have  their  habitation  among  the  closest 
particles  of  other  matter  animate  and  inanimate,  or  that 
are  found  in  every  globule  of  living  blood,  and  in  every 
drop  of  stagnant  water.  Let  him  have  for  it  something 
which  he  can  trust  as  a  "  thus  saith  the  Lord" — some 
word  from  the  supernatural  sphere  itself — speaking  not 
to  his  science  but  to  his  faith,  and  he  will  believe  the 
natural,  or  the  supernatural,  without  confounding  either, 
and  whether  the  latter  be  rare  or  frequent, —  revealed 


WHEKE  SCRIPTURE  SAYS  LITTLE  WE  KNOW  LITTLE.  189 

only  as  acting  in  the  most  general  beginnings  of  life,  or, 
as  the  Scriptures  would  seem  to  intimate,  and  science 
would  perhaps  deny,  carried  clear  through  in  some 
cases,  so  as  to  be  present  in  some  part  of  the  quickening 
process  of  every  individual,  at  least  every  individual 
human  generation. 

What,  then,  has  Scripture  revealed  in  respect  to  the 
origin  of  the  earth, —  the  origin  of  things  that  grow 
upon  it  —  the  origin  of  man  ?  Our  object  here  is  not  so 
much  to  answer  these  questions,  as  to  state  certain  prin- 
ciples in  relation  to  them.  If  the  Bible  has  something  to 
say  on  these  matters,  let  us  hear  it  and  thankfully  re- 
ceive it.  We  shall  never  get  any  reliable  information 
from  any  other  quarter.  If  Scripture  says  little  here, 
we  know  little  ;  where  it  says  nothing,  we  know  nothing. 
If  its  language  is  general,  our  knowledge  is  general ;  if 
it  gives  us  but  an  outline,  we  can  be  only  certain  of  the 
outline  facts,  although  it  will  be  no  irreverence,  we  think, 
to  suppose  a  filling  up,  if  we  are  careful  to  keep  out  eve- 
rything that  may  be  inconsistent,  or  may  seem  inconsis- 
tent, with  such  outline  view.  It  may  be,  and  it  is,  ra- 
tional to  think,  that  the  account  is  limited  to  an  outline 
view  because  we  could  not  comprehend  the  more  detailed 
processes,  or  their  ineffable  rationale,  as  given,  or  at- 
tetopted  to  be  given,  in  any  human  language.  There 
are  such  ineffable  processes  in  the  generations  that  are 
constantly  taking  place  around  us,  even  in  this  settled 
condition  of  things ;  how  much  more  full  of  them  may 
have  been  the  primordla  reriwif  There  is  something 
which  all  the  science  on  earth  can  not  explain,  and  never 
will  explain,  in  the  life  germination  of  every  garden  seed ; 
there  is  an  every  day  mystery,  0  !  how  much  higher  and 


190  MYSTERIES   IN   ORDINARY   CAUSATION. 

more  hidden  still !  in  the  wondrous  transmission  of  the 
human  vitality,  even  considered  in  its  lowest  sensitive 
form,  and  aside  from  the  rational  and  divine  element  in 
our  being !  If  there  are  such  inscrutable  hiding  places, 
impenetrable  chasms,  we  may  say,  in  the  Hnks  of  this 
ordinary  causation  as  it  is  passing  continually  under  the 
eye  of  our  sharpest  science,  what  an  abyss  of  the  unknown, 
and  to  us  unknowable,  must  there  be  in  the  awful  transi- 
tions from  nonentity, — in  the  principiis  pi'incipiorum,  the 
transcending  primeval  births,  the  quicTcening,  not  of 
transmitted  life,  but  of  vitality  itself.  "  Vestiges^^  of 
Creation !  Who  shall  dare  talk  of  them,  except  as  his 
way  is  illumined  by  the  lamp  of  God's  own  Word  ?  In 
opposition  to  such  a  claim  of  science,  how  appropriately 
may  we  accommodate  the  grand  Vulgate  version  of  the 
Lxxviith  Psalm  ?  —  Tu  es  Deus  qui  facis  mirabilia  ;  in 
aquis  multis  semitie  tuge,  et  vestigia  tua  non  cognoscen- 
tur.     i3»*ii3  kV>  'T'lriiapy,  "  Thy  foot8te2)S  are  unknown." 

Why  should  we  be  afraid  of  the  idea  of  the  natural  in 
creation,  or  of  the  mediate  as  distinguished  from  the  m- 
mediate.  If  God  chooses  to  make  a  nature,  give  it  its 
laws,  ideas,  potencies,  times  or  periods,  and  then  work 
by  it,  making  other  creations  by  this  creation,  what  have 
we  to  say  against  it  ?  Whose  pious  science,  or  scientific 
piety,  "  shall  touch  His  hand  and  say  unto  Him,  what 
doest  Thou  ?"  This  hyper-religionism  is  not  for  the  honor 
of  the  Scriptures.  It  is  to  save  to  science,  or  to  certain 
aspects  of  science  surrounded  by  religious  influences, 
that  honor  through  which  it  especially  claims  to  patronize 
the  Scriptures,  and  to  assume  a  controlling  voice  in  its 
interpretation.  What  does  such  science  know  of  phys- 
ical life,  or  the  conditions  under  which  it  may  be  devel' 


OMaiN  OF  MAN.  191 

oped  ?  To  deny  that  God  could  make  a  provision  by 
which  it  could  be  brought  out  in  some  manner  different 
from  what  we  call  ordinary  generation,  is  to  run  into  a 
Charybdis  of  materiahsm  worse  than  the  Scylla  of  which 
they  affect  so  pious  a  horror. 

We  are  naturally  in  the  same  condition  of  utter  igno- 
rance in  respect  to  the  origin  of  man.  The  Bible  repre- 
sents it  to  have  been  specially  supernatural — something 
not  to  be  resolved  into  a  wider  life  that  had  a  beginning 
in  some  former  supernatural,  but,  standing  by  itself,  a 
special  isolated  act.  The  creation  of  other  animate  exis- 
tences is  'given  generally  and  generically.  It  is  repre- 
sented as  somehow  connected  with  nature  or  the  earth. 
Nothing  is  said  about  the  making  of  individuals,  even  in 
multitudes,  much  less  of  pairs,  or  any  individual  pro- 
genitors. There  must  have  been  some  reason  for  the 
absence  of  this  kind  of  language  in  the  one  case,  while 
it  is  so  marked  and  pecuUar  in  the  other.  The  origin  of 
man  in  two  individuals  —  one  of  these  created  out  of  the 
other — is  the  great  and  striking  feature  of  the  account. 
And  yet  this  sacred  region,  too,  has  this  false  science 
lately  invaded,  whilst,  as  has  been  already  intimated, 
some  of  the  religious  world  who  are  determined  to  have 
a  harmony  at  any  cost,  are  preparing,  as  usual,  to  strike 
in  tune  with  whatever  key-note  she  may  sound,  or  to  fol- 
low wherever  she  may  make  her  move.  But  here,  again, 
this  kind  of  science  has  undertaken  something  clean  out 
of  her  inductive  province.  She  can  only  define  a  species 
in  one  of  two  ways  —  theoretically,  by  the  philosophical 
idea  (that  is,  borrowed  from  philosophy,)  of  generic  unity 
of  life,  or  practically,  by  the  scientific  law  of  a  certain 
amount  of  resemblance  held  together  by  a  greater  or  less 


192  AGISSIZ'S   DEFINITIO:!?. 

permanency.  This  latter,  or  the  mode  which  though  the 
more  defective  more  truly  belongs  to  science,  has  been 
chosen.  As  thus  given,  it  is  strictly  a  matter  of  quantity, 
and  in  this  direction  the  science  that  employs  it  can  never 
get  out  of  the  ever  changing  quantitative  idea.  But  all 
such  definitions  grounded  on  quantity  or  degree,  -whether 
of  resemblance  or  anything  else,  must  be  ever  inconstant, 
continually  varied  by  new  facts, —  these  facts,  too,  chang- 
ing even  within  the  range  of  our  very  narrow  known, 
but  which,  when  compared  with  the  unknown  in  time 
and  space,  become  absolutely  wortliless  terms  in  the  se- 
ries, too  vanishing  to  enter  into  any  trustworthy  analysis. 
Thus  an  amount  of  resemblance  that  might  make  a  pretty 
fair  probability  for  one  extent  of  time  and  space  (suppos- 
ing that  to  be  all  that  is,  or  is  to  be,  aflfected  by  it)  could 
afford  no  ground  for  a  classification  demanded  for  another. 
The  application  of  the  rule  to  a  short  historic  term  might 
make  many  separate  varieties  of  man, —  a  vastly  longer 
time  might  shut  up,  not  only  man,  but  all  the  lower  ani- 
mals with  him,  into  one  universal  brotherhood.  Mr. 
Agassiz,  for  example,  defines  as  difference  of  species,  all 
differences  that  were  distinctly  such  when  known  history 
commences.  Put  back  this  date  of  history,  or  put  it  for- 
ward, and  the  definition  is  good  for  nothing.  If  science 
defines  a  species  by  the  other  mode  of  a  supposed  once 
existing  actual  unity  of  life,  from  which  the  whole  spe- 
cies has  diverged,  that  will  do  ;  but  in  the  case  of  the 
human  race,  such  unity,  or  want  of  unity,  is  a  fact  neces- 
sarily transcending  human  history,  and  only  capable  of 
being  made  known  to  us,  or  disproved  to  us,  by  a  super- 
natural revelation.  To  find  this  historical  point  of  unity, 
we  must  take  the  Bible  account,  or  step  back  to  some 


DIGNIir  NOT  DEPENDENT  ON  MODE  OF  ORIGIN.     193 

antiquity  that  may  furnish  the  time  necessary  for  such  a 
back  convergency  of  varieties  into  one.  But  in  doing 
this  we  have  no  guide  in  science.  The  amount  of  it  all, 
then,  is  this  —  of  the  origin  of  our  planet,  of  the  origin 
of  life  upon  it,  and  of  the  origin  of  mem,  ive  must  have 
a  revelation  from  the  Creator  himself,  or  remain  in  im- 
penetrable ignorance. 

In  respect  to  these  matters,  therefore,  our  only  busi- 
ness is  to  study  that  revelation.  If  what  it  reveals  is 
scanty,  it  must  be  either  because  God  did  not  deem  the 
knowledge  omitted  as  of  any  great  importance,  or  did 
not  deem  us  capable  of  fully  receiving  it.  With  sunhke 
clearness  haS  it  made  known  to  us  the  most  important, 
but,  otherwise,  undiscoverable,  fact  of  a  primus  homo, — 
the  very  fact  which  modern  science,  or  that  which  claims 
to  be  most  scientific,  is  taking  upon  itself  to  deny.  It 
gives  us,  with  hke  clearness,  the  fact  of  his  divine  super- 
natural birth  ;  it  teaches  us  something,  less  distinctly, 
of  his  physical  origin,  but  still  the  Bible  does  not  make 
the  dignity  of  man  to  depend  so  much  on  his  mode  of 
origin,  especially  his  material  origin,  as  on  the  divine- 
dealing  in  the  important  covenant  transaction  made  with' 
that  one  man  as  the  physical,  spiritual,  and  forensic  re- 
presentative of  all  his  posterity. 

But  of  all  this,  and  of  all  that  relates  to  the  origin  of 
man  and  the  world,  we  repeat  it, —  and  it  will  bear  to  be 
repeated — we  know  only  from  the  Bible.  By  the  livmg 
Word  of  the  Lord  alone  can  we  refute  The  Vestiges. 
Just  as  the  Bible  is  firmly  beUeved,  will  the  latter  book, 
and  all  similar  books,  have  but  little  hold  upon  the  com- 
mon mind.  With  such  hearty  and  general  beUef  in  a 
Divine  Word,  there  will  be  no  need  of  any  geological  aid: 

17 


194  SCIENCE   EVER  DISCOVERS  MYSTERIES. 

to  faith,  and  without  it,  powerless  will  be  all  the  efforts 
of  one  kind  of  science  to  lay  the  evil  spirit  which  another 
kind  of  science  has  been  so  efl&cient  in  raising. 

Such  must  ever  be  the  position  of  science  in  respect 
to  revelation.  And  even  in  regard  to  cosmical  know- 
ledge in  general,  we  may  safely  say,  that  from  the  very 
nature  of  man,  and  his  confined  position,  natural  know- 
ledge must  ever  be  relatively  very  small.  It  looks  large 
to  some  who  are  in  the  midst  of  it,  but  to  a  true  thinking 
it  contracts  with  its  own  discoveries.  Paradox  as  it  may 
seem,  it  grows  darker  with  every  addition  that  is  made 
to  its  feeble  light,  because,  in  fact,  that  Hght,  if  we  have 
no  other  or  higher,  must  ever  reveal  mysteries  faster  than 
it  can  solve  them,  and  so  continually  throw  a  denser  and 
still  denser  gloom  on  the  dark  back  ground  of  human  ex- 
istence, making  more  and  more  inexplicable  the  problem 
of  human  life  and  the  enigma  of  the  vast  and  terrible 
nature  in  which  we  seem  to  be  sunk  and  lost.  So,  we 
say,  it  must  be  to  the  thinking ;  but  there  is  a  great  deal 
of  science  that  never  thinks,  strange  as  the  assertion  may 
seem ;  it  only  watches  for  phenomena,  makes  experi- 
ments, adds  to  its  little  heap  of  curious  facts,  attends 
scientific  conventions,  reads  scientific  papers  thereon,  and 
therewith  is  content.  Take  it  in  its  widest  field,  science 
is  legitimately  occupied  only  with  what  is,  (or  rather  is 
seen  to  be,)  and  how  it  is.  The  future  and  the  past 
belong  to  her  only  as  she  can  safely  carry  the  present 
into  them  and  measure  them  by  it.  But  the  moment 
she  begins  to  do  this  her  boasted  exactness  begins  to 
fade.  She  can  calculate  an  eclipse,  but  it  is  only  on 
the  supposition  _^that  not  only  the  observed  phenomena 
remain  the  same,  but  that  the  rate  of  movement,  and  the 


FASTER  THAN   SHE   CAN   SOLVE   THEM.  195 

rate  of  the  rate  of  movement,  remain  the  same  ;  just  as 
we  tell  the  time  of  day  by  the  clock,  or  predict  any  future 
position  of  the  hour  and  minute  hands,  if  its  rate  of  mo- 
tion does  not  in  the  mean  time  suffer  any  variation. 
This  does  well  enough  for  a  relatively  near  past,  or  near 
future,  such  as  the  time  of  day,  or  the  movements  of  the 
clock,  in  respect  to  the  astronomical  changes,  and  the 
visible  astronomical  changes  in  respect  to  some  great 
cosmical  movement  that  may  be  neglected  in  ordinary 
calculations,  but  which  it  would  be  very  unscientific  for 
us  to  leave  out  of  the  account  when  we  are  rash  enoucrh 

O 

to  apply  present  scientific  observations  to  the  measure- 
ment of  the  great  olamic  tim-es.  Thus  viewed,  in  either 
case,  whether  it  be  that  of  the  clock  or  of  the  eclipse, 
the  changes  in  the  cosmical  time-table  become  infinitessi- 
mals  in  regard  to  our  magnified  present.  They  imper- 
ceptibly vary  the  result.  But  move  off  either  way,  ad- 
vancing into  the  future,  or  receding  into  the  past,  and 
the  unknown  comes  pouring  continually  into  the  scale, 
faster  and  faster,  until  it  forms  quite  a  disturbing  quan- 
tity,— yea,  so  as  to  affect  the  very  balance  of  fact  that 
must  be  known  and  taken  in  to  form  anything  like  a 
true  induction.  Carry  it  still  farther,  either  way,  into 
the  very  remote,  and  unless  we  fall  back  upon  revelation, 
or  some  unscientific  a  priori  principles,  as  some  would 
sneeringly  call  them,  all  becomes  a  guess,  a  fool-hardy 
assumption  that  has  not  even  the  dignity  of  a  conjecture. 
But  when  we  keep  our  thoughts  upon  our  own  world, 
and  our  own  race,  the  ground  assumed  becomes  still 
more  sure  and  incontrovertible.  On  the  supposition  of 
no  supernatural  revelation  having  ever  been  made,  or  of 
its  being  lost  to  knowledge  or  belief,  it  may  be  safely  af- 


196      THE   TRAVELLER  LOST  IN  THE   WILDERNESS. 

firmed  that  the  real  darkness  hanging  over  the  problem  of 
human  life,  yea,  of  existence  in  general,  would  be  greater 
now  than  in  the  days  of  Pythagoras,  and  that  the  increase 
would  be  in  the  direct  ratio  of  the  increase  of  natural 
knowledge  from  that  time  to  this.  It  would  be  like  the 
traveller  lost  in  the  wilderness.  He  collects  specimens 
of  herb  and  mineral,  he  examines  the  curious  positions  of 
rocks,  he  gazes  upon  the  stars  above  his  head,  and  ex- 
plores the  earth  beneath  his  feet,  but  he  is  ever  more 
:i0st  still.  The  multiplicity  of  objects  only  adds  to  his 
'-•confusion  and  perplexity.  Darker  and  darker  grows  the 
interminable  forest,  or  wider  and  wider  spreads  out  before 
him  the  blinding  bewildering  waste  of  the  boundless  de- 
sert. In  view  of  this,  there  is  no  trifling  like  that  of  cer- 
tain kinds  of  science,  especially  when  regarded  in  con- 
nection with  its  inane  boasting.  "  Is  it  not  true,"  asks 
Professor  Dana,  "  that  science  (meaning  of  course  na- 
tural science)  is  ever  tending  to  the  clearing  away  of 
doubts"  ?  No,  we  answer  boldly.  We  take  a  direct 
issue  here,  and  we  have  proved  our  side  of  it.  Natural 
-science  alone  —  let  the  qualification  be  ever  remembered, 
.for  it  is  of  the  utmost  importance  in  the  argument — na- 
'tural  science  alone,  and  with  all  that  the  widest  claim 
(Can  bring  within  her  province,  is  ever,  to  a  thinking" man, 
"breeding  difficulties  and  doubts  inexphcable.  There  is 
enough  darkness  in  one  magnified  drop  of  water  to  lead 
such  a  one  to  implore  light  from  a  higher  world,  or  to  flee 
for  protection  to  the  least  evidence  of  a  revelation  from 
above  the  sphere  of  the  natural.  Again  he  asks — "  Is 
there  no  foundation  for  full  faith  in  the  teachings  of  na- 
ture, or  the  deductions  of  the  human  mind  therefrom  ?" 
The  sentence  is  ambiguous;  it  may  mean  faith  m  nature 


"WHERE   SHALL   AVISDOM   BE   FOUND?"  197 

as  the  object  of  belief,  (for  which  there  is  certainly  a 
foundation,  a  blessed  foundation,  though  not  in  nature 
herself,)  or  it  may  mean  a  foundation  in  nature  for  faith. 
If  such  be  the  meaning,  again  we  answer,  no.  There  is 
darkness  in  nature,  there  ever  will  be  darkness  in  nature, 
growing  ever,  the  more  we  explore  her  by  her  own  light 
alone.  God  meant  it  should  be  so, — we  may  reverently 
say  it  —  to  drive  us  to  himself  without  this  endless  circu- 
itous mode  of  seeking  him.  It  is  for  our  moral  discipline 
that  we  should  walk  in  the  wilderness,  but  the  true  light 
that  shines  on  nature,  and  renders  scientific  progress  any 
thing  more  than  a  blinding  maze,  is  not  from  nature  her- 
self,—  as  would  soon  be  found  should  there  ever  be  a  set- 
ting of  that  ancient  Star  in  the  East,  whose  beams  so  many 
mistake  for  their  own  or  nature's  illumination.  "  The 
Heavens  declare  the  glory  of  God,"  but  it  is  to  those 
who  receive  the  "  higher  law"  than  nature,  that  "  law 
which  is  perfect,  converting  the  soul,  that  testimony  of 
the  Lord  which  is  sure,  making  wise  the  simple."  How 
different  this  "  declaring'''  is  from  that  search  for  links 
without  beginnings  or  ends,  that  tracing  of  utilities  and 
designs  ever  terminating  in  nature,  which  is  boasted  of 
under  certain  aspects  of  science  and  "  natural  theology," 
may  be  elsewhere  shown.  It  is  alluded  to  here,  simply 
that  our  meaning  may  not  be  mistaken.  There  is,  in- 
deed, an  outward  glory  in  God's  ivorTis  to  those  "  who 
seek  Him  in  his  Word.''''  But  from  nature  alone  there 
ever  comes  forth  to  the  thinking  soul  that  query  she  so 
solemnly  suggests  but  never  answers  — "  Where,  then, 
shall  Wisdom  be  found,  and  where  is  the  place  of  under- 
standing ?  The  Deep  saith,  It  is  not  in  me ;  the  Sea  saith, 
It  is  not  in  me,"     Nature  can  not  tell  why  God  made 

17* 


198  WHO   PUT  LIES   IN   NATURE'S   MOUTH? 

her,  or  why  He  made  man.  She  might  give  up  all  her 
secrets  to  science,  if  that  were  ever  possible,  and  yet  be 
as  far  as  ever  from  revealing  the  secret  of  the  universe, 
or  that  wisdom  which  alone  makes  nature  herself  intelli- 
gible. 

But  though  we  say  no  to  Professor  Dana's  queries,  we 
can  not  subscribe  to  the  conclusion  he  would  attach  to 
such  denial.  "  If  such,"  he  says,  "  be  actually  the  end 
of  man's  contemplations,  he  would  be  forced,  in  just  in- 
dignation, to  write  false  over  the  whole  face  of  nature, 
and  to  replace  the  word  God  with  that  of  demon."  Who 
charges  nature  with  being  false  ?  They  put  lies  into  her 
mouth  who  find  in  her  what  God  alone  can  reveal,  and 
has  chosen  to  reveal  in  some  other  way.  They  make 
her  false  who  would  place  her  at  the  foundation  of  what 
she  can  not  support,  and  which  God  meant  should  be  the 
foundation,  the  available  support,  of  any  true  living  faith 
in  her.  They  thus  "  write  false  over  the  face  of  nature," 
when  they  should  rather  write  ignorance  and  folly  on 
their  own  boasting  knowledge  of  her  revealings.  They 
*'  replace  the  word  Grod  with  that  of  tc?oZ,"  we  will  not 
say  demon,  when  they  make  nature  the  fountain  of  light, 
and  all  but  worship  this  veiled  power,  or  talk  of  her  as  in 
any  sense  a  parallel  revelation.  There  was  once  a  pretty 
thing  they  called  natural  religion,  viith  its  five  moral  ar- 
ticles, after  the  style  of  the  Herbert  and  Bolingbroke 
school.  Some  even  thought  they  could  have  it,  and,  at 
the  same  time,  the  written  revelation,  too,  as  a  sort  of 
reflection  of  the  higher  creed.  Butler  swept  this  all 
away.  There  has  since  grown  up  what  may  be  called, 
not  so  much  natural  religion,  as  the  religion  of  nature, 
or  of  natural  science  as  a  parallel  revelation,  to  say  the 


i 


NO  MIDDLE  GROUND REVELATION  OR  ATHEISM.  199 

least,  with  the  written  Scriptures.  The  same  service 
is  demanded  by  the  Church  in  respect  to  this  assump- 
tion, and  when  it  is  done,  then  may  we  expect  the  "  re- 
storation of  the  old  belief,"  in  something  like  its  old 
strength.  When  this  confused  middle  ground  is  all 
cleared  up,  or  men  are  shown  that  there  is,  in  truth,  no 
such  middle  ground  between  revelation  and  atheism,  we 
may  trust  the  better  feelings  of  humanity,  fallen  as  it  is, 
for  a  return  to  the  book  of  God  with  a  firmer  hold,  and 
a  faith  more  strongly  anchored,  perhaps,  than  any  the 
Church  has  ever  before  possessed. 

We  are  not  defending  the  author  of  The  Vestiges,  or 
adopting  his  theory.  We  know  not  how  that  theory 
might  strike  us,  if  compelled  to  give  up  revelation. 
After  such  a  sad  event,  there  would  be  but  little  differ- 
ence in  value  between  any  systems  of  science  or  philo- 
sophy. But  we  have  not  come  to  that  yet.  We  hold 
the  doctrine  of  one  Moses,  "a man  of  God,"  who  derived 
his  facts  from  the  mind  to  which  there  is  no  unknown  in 
time  and  space,  or  height  of  being.  Yet,  still,  since 
there  has  been  so  much  said  about  it,  it  might  be  expected 
of  us  to  state  briefly  some  of  the  objections  that  might 
fairly  be  made  to  such  a  doctrine  of  development  of  spe- 
cies from  species.  There  are  two  principal  ones  that  we 
have  read  of,  or  that  occur  to  the  mind  as  of  chief  import- 
ance. The  first  is  physical,  the  second  metaphysical. 
It  is  not  the  law  or  mode  now,  and  from  appearances 
that  we  discover,  or,  rather,  the  want  of  appearances, 
we  infer  that  it  was  not  the  law  or  method  in  the  long 
geological  epochs.  This  is  the  physical  objection.  The 
proof  of  it  is  supposed  to  be  found  in  the  absence  of  all 
transition  marks,  transition  forms,  or  half-way  stages, 


200  PHYSICAL    OB.TEOTIO'N'   TO   DEVELOPMENT. 

such  as  there  would  have  been  remains  of  had  there  ever 
been  such  a  thing  in  nature,  creative  or  otherwise,  as 
species  changing  into  species,  or  a  new  species  coming 
from  some  naturaL  We  think  we  have  stated  the  posi- 
tion fairly,  and  since  our  stand  point  as  followers  of 
Moses  renders  us  perfectly  impartial  here,  we  may  also 
give  a  reply  that  may  be  offered,  if  our  scientific  friend, 
Professor  Dana,  does  not  find  in  such  a  "  hypothetical 
statement"  the  seeds  of  another  alarming  heresy.  It 
might  be  said  by  the  man  who  has  found,  or  thinks  he 
has  found,  the  vestiges,  and  whom  for  the  sake  of  distinc- 
tion we  may  call  the  Vestigian,  that  analogy,  as  he  reads 
it,  is  against  such  an  objection.  In  the  individual  birth^ 
he  might  say,  nature  is  sudden,  though  her  gestation  is 
comparatively  long,  silent,  secret.  Even  in  her  most  re- 
markable changes,  as  we  know  they  take  place,  you  do 
not  commonly  find  marks,  at  least  any  visible  or  promi- 
nent marks,  of  the  transition  state.  The  preparation  is 
made  slowly,  imperceptibly,  stilly ;  the  consummation, 
when  it  comes,  is  quick,  clean,  and  complete.  There  is 
much  analogy  to  show  that  in  her  mysterious  births, 
nature  modestly  vails  her  face,  and  chooses  the  night, 
whether  it  be  of  the  shorter  or  the  longer  day.  So  may 
it  be,  he  would  say,  in  the  still  higher  mystery  of  specific 
generation,  higher,  it  may  be  called,  in  some  respects, 
and  yet,  in  itself,  no  more  a  mystery  than  what  is  called 
ordinary  generation.  Gestation  is  long,  but  birth  is  sud- 
den and  mysterious.  He  finds  many  curious  facts  in 
evidence  of  such  a  general  law.  Nature  may  now  be 
carrying  in  her  womb  embryo  powers,  and  embryo  laws, 
which  no  naturalist  hath  seen,  or  can  discover,  and  yet 
as  really  there  as  the  power  that  sends  forth  the  new 


GESTATION  LONG,  BIRTH   SUDDEN   AND  PERFECT.  201 

life  in  the  spring  after  the  long  torpor  of  winter,  or  quickly 
ripens  the  new  fruit  in  every  recurring  autumn.  True 
generative  powers  are  never  wholly  inert,  although 
they  may  lie  long  apparently  dormant.  There  was 
something  going  on  all  the  time  in  the  grain  of  wheat 
that  lay  three  thousand  years  in  the  cloths  of  the  Egyp- 
tian mummy,  and  then  grew  again  in  English  earth.  It 
was  doing  something  all  the  time  ;  for  we  can  not  con- 
ceive of  a  physical  power  that  is  not,  in  some  sense,  doing, 
energizing,  producing  some  effect  in  time  and  space ; 
and  yet  no  science  could  discover  such  an  energy.  And 
so  in  nature  on  a  wider  scale.  The  process  may  be  too 
noiseless,  too  deep  down  for  any  scientific  lens ;  it  may 
be  too  slow  for  the  watching  of  any  experience  though  it 
be  that  of  successive  generations ;  it  may  be  too  hidden 
for  any  science  to  find  any  of  its  links,  and  tie  them  to- 
gether in  any  inductive  series ;  and  yet,  when  the  hour 
of  travail  comes,  the  evolution  may  be  as  rapid  and  as 
sudden  on  the  transcending  or  the  wider  scale  of  genera- 
tion, if  there  be  such  wider  scale,  as  we  know  it  to  be 
comparatively  in  ordinary  or  more  usual  growth.  In 
nature,  thus  contemplated,  even  though  there  might  be 
transition  movements,  there  would  not  be  intermediate 
transition  forms,  or,  if  so,  rare  and  obscurely  visible. 
When  the  long  cj^cle  of  gestation  is  drawing  to  its  close, 
and  the  long  invisibly  revolving  wheels  (invisible  because 
science  can  only  see  powers  in  their  efiects)  touch  at  last 
the  hidden  springs  to  which  they  have  been  coming  nearer 
and  nearer  at  every  successive  revolution,  then  comes 
forth  quickly,  and  perfectly,  the  new  birth,  the  new 
growth,  which  may  have  been  as  truly  in  the  original 


202  TRANSITION   FORMS. 

law,  or  great  wheel  of  the  cycle,  as  any  of  the  more  usual 
powers  and  forms  of  reproduction. 

We  need  not  give  at  length  the  rebutter  to  this,  or  the 
surrebutter.  The  anti-Vestigian  who  sticks  to  nature  as 
he  sees  her,  may  talk  of  polywogs  and  tadpoles,  and  col- 
lect his  statistics  of  transition  marks  that  nature,  the 
present  nature,  leaves  when  she  does,  or  seems  to  do,  her 
present  work  irregularly.  For  she  does  sometimes  blun- 
der,— it  must  be  confessed, —  and  make  faults  in  gene- 
ration, as  well  as  those  that  are  found  in  geological  strata. 
Though  possessed  of  artistic  skill  of  the  highest  order, 
yet,  like  other  finite  and  imperfect  agents  whom  God  has 
made,  she  sometimes  works  out  an  idea  badly.  And 
this,  says  the  other  party,  or  he  might  say  it,  shows  that 
had  there  been  any  such  strange  transitions  in  the  olden, 
the  very  olden  time;  there  would  have  been  left  in  the 
rocks  some  visible  traces  of  such  abnormal,  or  to  us  ab- 
normal ways.  He  might  maintain,  also,  that  the  birth 
in  its  highest  outward  completeness,  may  be  throughout 
discovered  in  the  gestation  if  we  watch  it  close  enough, 
and  have  glasses  powerful  enough  ;  and  he  may  be  right, 
wholly  or  partially '  right ;  we  think  he  is  right  in  the 
main ;  especially  against  any  Vestigian  opponent,  who, 
like  himself,  is  content  to  appeal  to  no  higher  authority 
than  inductive  science.  Yet  still  we  decide  not  dogmat- 
ically between  them — 

Non  nobis  tantas  compoocre  litee. 

Our  only  business  here  is  to  get,  if  we  can,  the  fair  mean- 
ing of  the  Scripture  teachings,  be  they  full  or  scanty,  on 
these  primordial  matters  into  which  neither  of  these  con- 
tending parties  have  either  right  or  power  to  carry  their 
speculations.     If  revelation  gives  us  something,  be  it 


METAPHYSICAL   OBJECTION  TO   DEVELOPMENT.    203 

ever  so  little,  bj  -which  we  may  hope  to  reach  a  conclu- 
sion, we  will  make  the  most  of  it.  If  it  gives  us  nothing 
of  the  kind,  then  we  have  scientific  and  philosophic  hberty 
to  adopt  either  side,  without  fear  of  any  charge  of  heresy, 
or  of  any  hard  names  that  either  the  scientific  or  religious 
bigotry  may  cast  upon  us. 

The  other,  or  metaphysical  argument,  has  a  still 
stronger  look  against  the  Vestigian,  and  yet  we  can  not 
pronounce  it  perfect.  To  talk  of  the  higher  coming  out 
of  the  lower,  it  says,  and  says  truly,  is  something  worse 
than  any  contradiction  of  nature's  laws  ;  it  is  a  contra- 
diction of  ideas.  "  What  is  not  in,  can  not  come  out." 
It  would  be  plus  e  minore,  more  from  less,  and  that  is 
the  same  as  something  from  nothing.  This  is  well  taken, 
we  say,  if  we  assume  a  certain  hypothesis,  or  adopt  one 
which  present  facts  seem  to  establish.  What  is  not  in, 
can  not  come  out.  True  ;  but  in  the  absence  of  any 
facts  to  the  contrary,  it  may  be  said  that  it  is  m,  and 
therefore  may  come  out.  There  are,  however,  such 
facts,  furnishing  proof  which  we  can  not  deny  without 
danger  of  universal  scepticism.  There  is  more  in  the 
man  than  in  the  monkey,  and,  therefore,  man  never  could 
have  been  in  the  monkey.  We  need  not  be  troubled 
about  man  here,  as  we  have  special  Scriptural  proof  in 
his  case,  and  in  conservation  of  his  dignity,  but  some 
consideration  is  also  due  to  the  nobler  species  among  the 
lower  animals,  who  can  not  be  so  well  shielded  by  direct 
Scriptural  interpretation  from  this  derogating  suspicion 
of  development  from  seemingly  inferior  natures.  To 
develop  the  mammalia  from  the  reptiles  would  also  seem 
like  getting  more  from  less,  or  bringing  out  what  was 
never  in.    So  the  dog  seems  to  have  a  higher  nature,  to 


204    WHAT  DOES   GEOLOGY  MEAN  BY  HER   TYPES  ? 

have  more  in  him  in  fact,  than  ever  could  have  been  sup- 
posed to  be  contained,  dormant  or  otherwise,  in  the  stu- 
pid masses  of  half-animated  flesh  that  inhabit  the  water 
or  the  mud.     In  the  same  manner  might  be  stated  many 
other  cases.     And  yet  this  is  a  difficulty  for  geological 
science  rather  than  for  a  development  theory,  or  partial 
development  theory,  which  might  be  so  framed,  and  on 
pretty  fair  Scriptural  proof,  as  wholly  to  escape  it.     We 
say  partial  development  theory,  for  it  would  have  so  far 
to   depart  from  uninterrupted   development,   (a  thing 
Avhich  any  one  who  holds  it  would  very  cheerfully  do,) 
as  to  admit  the  Scriptural  idea  of  a  divine  Word,  or  a 
divine  interposition,  supplying  this  higher  or  j^Zt^s  quan- 
tity, every  time  there  was  such  an  ascent  in  the  animal 
scale,  although  building  each  time  on  the  lower  physical. 
We  do  not  maintain,  and  have  not  maintained,  even  this 
in  respect  to  man ;  we  were  rather  cautious  about  carry- 
ing so  far  this  super-building  of  the  higher  upon  the  lower, 
although  we  speculated  and  hypothesized  some  about  it ; 
but  if  our  scientific  friends  are  shocked  at  it,  will  they, 
pray,  tell  us,  in  all  clearness  and  honesty,  what  they 
mean  by  that  doctrine  of  types  of  which  they  say  so 
much,  and  Avhich  Professor  Dana  is  so  fond  of  exhibit- 
ing, even  at  the  expense  of  all  consistency,  in  his  charges 
against  the  author.     We  would  enquire  of  him  elsewhere 
what  he  means  by  his  "  laws  ;^'  but  we  would  ask  here, 
and  with  a  deep  sense,  too,  of  the  difficulty  of  under- 
standing him, —  What  does  he  mean  by  his  types  ?  If  he 
does  not  find  the  man  in  the  fish,  he  certainly  finds  the 
fish  in  the  man,  the  mammaha  in  the  man,  the  monkey 
in  the  man,  the  whole  caravan  of  lower  animation,  we 
may  say,  in  this  single  all-containing  homo.     We  have 


OUK   OWX   NATURE   TAKEN   INTO   A   HIGHER.      205 

no  particular  objection  to  this  speculation  of  Geology  ; 
on  the  whole,  we  rather  like  it,  although  the  special 
Scriptural  account  of  Adam  contents  us  ;  but  does  not 
this  look  something  like  development  ?  If  it  is  not  a  de- 
velopment of  man  out  of  the  lower  animals,  it  is  certainly 
an  envelopment  of  the  lower  animals  into  man ;  and  that 
equally  affects  our  dignity  by  making  them  physically 
bone  of  our  bone,  and  flesh  of  our  flesh.  But  we  need 
not  be  humbled  at  that  thought,  or,  if  humbled,  it  should 
be  with  joy  and  penitence,  when  we  remember  how  a 
higher  and  heavenly  nature  (if  we  may  use  the  word 
nature  in  this  connection)  took  upon  himself,  or  rather 
into  himself,  the  nature  of  man,  thus  raising  us  from  our 
deep  abyss  of  animality,  internal  and  surrounding,  to  a 
dignity  which  no  psychological  rank  could  impart,  and 
no  connection  with  lower  orders  of  being  ever  diminish. 
Geology  teaches, —  Professor  Dana  teaches, —  that  th^ 
lower  nMure  of  the  fish  is  the  ground  on  which  is  some- 
how built  (in  type  at  least  the  most  important  part  of 
the  process)  the  higher  nature  of  the  reptile,  whilst  this- 
becomes  the  ground  of  that  which  is  next  above,  and  so 
on  until  we  come  to  the  upper  stories  of  the  scale.  Has 
this  doctrine  of  types  any  meaning  as  taught  by  science  t 
Or  what  does  it  mean  ?  If  ayc  would  have  anything  more 
than  a  most  inane  figure  of  speech,  it  can  denote  nothing 
less  than  an  actual  stream  of  life  flowing  on  w"ithout 
breaks  in  its  continuity,  and  yet,  from  time  to  time,  re- 
ceiving from  a  higher  source  a  new  energy  and  a  new 
elevation.  In  this  stream,  as  their  constant  materiel,. 
(to  use  the  term  in  its  philosophic  sense,)  the  types  are 
impressed, —  each  time  with  a  higher  beauty,  a  higher 
finish,  and  a  higher  life.     It  is,  in  fact,  when  rightly 

18 


206     THE  TYPES  AND  THE  PLATONIC  IDEAS, 

viewed,  precisely  that  doctrine  of  Platonic  ideas  against 
which  Professor  Dana  attempts  to  excite  the  easily  ex- 
cited religious  odium.  Under  another  form  of  language, 
and  without  knowing  precisely  what  it  is,  he  admii-es  it- 
greatly,  and  is  never  tired  of  introducing  it  into  his  arti- 
cle. Some  scientific  men,  of  highest  note  abroad,  had 
brought  this  mode  of  speech  into  the  scientific  dialect. 
Others  have  adopted  it,  pleased  with  the  pretty  sound, 
yet  with  so  Uttle  clear  knowledge  of  its  real  force  that 
they  are  ^er  running  into  inconsistencies  in  the  use  of 
it.  Plato  represents  these  types  or  ideas  in  nature  as 
something  distinct  from  her  laws.  They  are  the  Cirs^- 
jui,aT(xoj  Xoyoi,  the  8'permatic  words  sown  in  the  stream  of 
natural  causality.  It  is  a  figure,  indeed,  and  yet  some- 
thing more  than  a  figure.  The  type  is  an  impression 
sinking  into  the  nature  as  it  flows,  and  not  merely  a 
material  mass  separately  originated,  outwardly  affected, 
and  artificially  formed,  each  time,  in  imitation  of  some- 
thing outward  that  was  not  vitally  present  in  its  organiza- 
tion. The  lower  type  is  carried  by  the  stream  into  the 
higher  life,  and  there  it  receives  a  real  addition  of  beauty 
and  design  that  is  transmitted  to  the  next,  and  so  on  — 
becoming  more  ideal,  that  is,  less  gross,  sensual,  utilitarian, 
merely  animal,  at  every  step.  Above  it  all  is  the  great 
Architect  of  Ideas  carrying  on  the  creative  work — mak- 
ing a  nature, — that  is,  originating  a  nature,  sustaining 
that  nature  against  the  necessary  deterioration  of  its  own 
finity,  making  it  the  mold  to  receive  the  divine  ideas,  and, 
as  the  plastic  stream  flows  on,  impressing  upon  it  continu- 
ally a  higher  and  still  higher  idea  from  that  eternal  para- 
digm, that  timeless  thought,  which  was  with  Ilim  *fo  twv 
fciwvwvj  "  before  the  ages  or  the  ivorlds  began." 


FALSE  TYPES  —  NOT  TYPES  BUT  IMITATIONS.  207 

Whether  this  doctrine  of  types,  or  ideas,  be  true  or 
false,  the  view  we  have  thus  presented  is  the  only  one 
that  makes  it  anything  more  than  an  unmeaning  simile. 
We  have  endeavored  to  put  some  meaning  into  this  lan- 
guage Professor  Dana  is  so  fond  of  employing.  Tyi^e^ 
sounds  well ;  it  is,  indeed,  a  beautiful,  as  well  as  most 
significant  word,  but,  then,  as  he  uses  them  they  are  not 
really  -ruTroi,  but  i^i^ri(fsi5,  not  types,  but  imitations,  not 
the  true  in-forming  architectural  design,  as  wrought  in 
and  constituting  the  real  molding,  but  a  mere  delusive 
fresco  painting.  This  cheating  fancy  can  only  make 
itself  intelligible  at  all  by  representing  each  work  of  God 
as  separate,  and  Deity  as  each  time  separately  imitating 
in  every  after  production  of  his  creative  hand  something 
which  he  had  done  in  earlier  efforts.  It  represents  the 
■Great  Printer — with  all  reverence  be  it  spoken — as 
making  over  and  over  again  the  same  type  or  types,  not 
only  at  the  printing  of  every  volume,  but  for  every  im- 
pression of  every  page,  and  word,  and  letter, — nay, 
more,  as  casting  again  each  time,  and  for  every  letter,  a 
new  metallic  mold.  This  is  not  printing.  In  such  a  pro- 
cess there  are  really  no  types,  no  molds,  but  only  imita- 
tions of  them.  All  this  results,  if  ideas,  and  types,  and 
that  in  which  they  flow,  the  continuous  life,  are  not  by 
themselves,  in  natiira  rej-um,  as  real  existences  as  the 
matter  hard  or  soft, — yea,  more  real  in  any  true  and 
proper  notion  we  can  attach  to  the  word  reality.  In  the 
other  view,  or  rather  want  of  all  definite  view,  which  pre- 
vails among  gome  scientific  men,  there  is  nothing  truly 
typical  or  ideal — nothing  even  that  can  be  called  com- 
prehensible, or  of  which  we  can  perceive  any  idea  or 
meaning.     All  comparisons  we  know,  and  all  words  fail 


208      ATTEMPT  TO    GIVE   MEANING   TO   THE   TYPES. 

here.  There  is  no  diiEculty  in  taking  exceptions  to  any 
expressions,  however  carefully  guarded.  Still  there  is  a 
fitness  in  this  language  of  types  that  has  struck  the  most 
religious  as  well  as  the  most  philosophic  minds,  although 
as  sometimes  used  they  are  mere  sound  and  shadow  from 
which  all  significance  and  all  ideas  have  departed. 

We  may  well  ask,  again  —  Has  this  doctrine  any  mean- 
ing as  taught  in  scientific  books  ?  If  it  has,  then  Avhat 
consistency  is  there  in  branding  with  an  odious  name  a 
statement  which  only  attempts  to  bring  out  that  signifi- 
'■sance,  and  in  holding  up  as  a  bugbear  that  Platonism 
from  which  the  idea  has  been  filched,  although,  it  may 
very  well  be,  without  any  definite  knowledge  on  the  part 
of  some  who  make  the  greatest  parade  of  the  language.* 

But  we  would  not  lose  sight  of  the  only  conclusion  we 
have  sought  to  establish  in  this  chapter.  "We  may  guess, 
Tve  may  fancy,  we  may  philosophize,  we  may  pursue  ana- 
logies clear  or  dim ;  but,  after  all,  we  hioiu  nothing  of 
•origin  aside  from  revelation.     The  writer  would  say  for 

:  *  The  author,  in  that  passage  of  The  Six  Days  of  Crcatioa  which  has 
called  out  one  of  Professor  Daxa's  most  jiious  rebukes,  did  not  go  as  far 
as  this.  Ho  was  very  cautious — more  cautious,  perhaps,  than  he  need  to 
liave  been.  lustend  of  thus  building  the  mau  on  the  fish,  as  this  scientific 
doctrine  of  types  must  do,  if  it  means  anything,  he  simply  said  that  if  the 
Scriptures  had  taught  that  the  human  bodj'had  been  a  growth  from  lower 
to  higher,  he  would  not  pronounce  it  monstrous  or  incredible.  Pretty  safe 
this.  And  then  he  proceeds  to  show  some  reasons  from  Scripture  which 
would  seem  to  be  against  it.  Professor  Dan'A  has  only  left  out  an  if,  that 
most  unimportant  word  in  a  hypothetical  statement.  The  amount  of  it, 
ihen,  is  simply  this.  The  autiior  said  he  could  believe  with  the  Scriptiireg, 
*what  Professor  Dana  holds  witlwut  the  Scriptures  and,  we  may  even  say, 
without  any  intelligible  idea.  This  is  the  ground,  too,  on  which  ho  j-ro- 
nounces  the  book  "  decidedly  infidel  in  its  tendency."  It  is  hard  to  decide 
which  is  the  more  striking  here,  the  unconscious  inconsistency,  the  gross 
absurdit}',  or  the  extreme  narrowness  of  the  ciiarge  as  coming  from  one 
who  would  be  thounht  a  liberal  minded  and  liberal  thinkiiiarman  of  scienco. 


i>SALM  CSXXIX.  209 

himself,  that  avray  from  this  authority  he  has  no  theory  of 
development  or  undevelopraent ;  none,  at  least,  that  he 
would  not  surrender,  in  a  moment,  to  any  fair  demand  of 
interpretation  against  it.  For  the  doctrine  of  ideas  he 
must  confess  an  exceeding  fondness.  He  thinks  Scrip- 
ture is  not  against  it,  if  there  is  not  rather  something 
which,  although  in  the  Hebrew  or  Oriental  way,  looks 
very  much  like  a  recognition  of  at  least  a  similar  view. 
"  Thine  eyes  did  see  our  substance  yet  unformed,*  and 

*  Psalm  cxsxix,  16.  LXX,  AxaTSPvatfTov  jxoo.  Symmachus,  d|i/.o^- 
fflwro'v  ffce,  ichen  1  was  formless.  Vulgate,  iinperfectum  meum,  my  un- 
wrought  OY  unfinished.  "In  the  days."  This  is  not  expressed,  although 
significantly  given  by  the  words  in  our  ti-anslation,  "  in  continuance." 
The  passage, doubtless,  refers,  in  the  first  place,  to  ordinary  generation  in 
the  maternal  womb,  but  it  suggests  the  greater  sense  ;  and  may  there  not 
be  a  transition  to  the  greater  sense, — in  other  words,  from  the  individual 
to  the  mysterious  creative  generation?  May  not  that  remarkable  lan- 
guage, "tlic  loicest  parts  of  the  earth,"  be  exegetical  of  the  words  ia  Genesis 
ii,  7,  "  And  the  Lord  God  foiTued  man  of  the  earth,"  nttlHrt  ya  ?  Was 
there  a  process  in  this  primitive  formation,  or  generation,  of  the  first  hu- 
manity in  the  perfecting  of  the  first  individual  man  ?  Those  who  say  that 
the  brevity  and  tone  of  the  language  excludes  such  an  idea,  should  com- 
pare with  it  the  expression,  Jer.  i,  5, — "  1  formed  thee  in  the  tcomb."  Had 
we  known  as  little  of  ordinarj',  as  we  do  of  primitive  generation,  or  the 
creative  fTlVlll,  some  zealous  advocate  of  literality,  as  he  styles  it,  might 
call  a  man  an  infidel  for  suggesting  that  the  language  in  this  latter  text 
might  be  consistent  with  the  idea  of  a  process,  long  or  short,  or  a  gesta- 
tion, that  is,  a  formation,  or  making,  through  a  system  of  law  and  causal 
agency.  It  may  be  as  much  outline  language,  in  the  one  case  as  in  the 
other,  and  should  render  us  cautious  how  we  make  our  knowledge,  ia 
fact  our  ignorance,  the  infallible  measure  of  the  meaning  of  God's  brief  yet 
mysterious  language.  There  are  difficulties,  certainly,  attending  this  ■view 
of  Psalm  cxxxix,  and  the  mere  suggestion  of  such  a  transition  sense  is  of- 
fered with  great  diffidence ;  but  there  are  also  difficulties,  which  every  com- 
mentator has  felt,  as  existing  in  some  parts  of  this  language,  when  we  at- 
tempt to  confine  it  wholly  to  the  first  view.  Especially  is  this  the  case 
with  that  strange  expression,  "  the  lowest  parts  of  the  earth."  If  a  figure 
for  the  maternal  womb,  it  is  no  where  else  so  employed  in  Scripture.  Still, 
in  either  ^aew,  our  leading  thought  of  a  super-material  formation,  in  some 

18* 


210     "  THE  LOWEST  PARTS  OF  THE  EARTH." 

in  thy  book  our  members  all  were  Avritten  Avhen  as  yet 
there  were  none  of  them" — '•Hn  the  clays'^  when  they  had 
not  yet  come  out  in  outward  being,  but  were  being  formed 
and  "  curiously  v/rought"  in  the  divinely  formed  womb 
of  nature,  amid  the  interiora  of  generic  causation, —  in 
the  very  depths  —  "  tlie  fowest  paj'ts  of  the  earth.^^  Is 
it  true  of  the  maternal  gestation,  (which  would  seem  to  be 
the  first  meaning  of  the  passage,)  and  is  it  not  also  true, 
and  may  we  not  suppose  it  to  be  affirmed  as  true  of  the 
higher  and  older  birth  of  our  humanity  ?  God  made  the 
tree  "  before  it  was  in  the  earth," — that  same  tree  which 
the  earth  afterwards  so  mysteriously  brought  fort] t  indivi- 
dually and  specifically  into  outward  materiality.  He  made 
it  "  before  it  grew," — that  same  thing,  in  one  and  a  most 
important  sense,  which  afterwards  did  grow.  He  made, — 
from  no  material  seed,  or  outward  material  substance,  as 

way  transcending  tlie  matei-ial,  and  going  continually  before  the  material, 
receives  the  same  support.  Just  as  the  tree  is  made  before  it  grows,  so 
here  something  is  made  and  regarded  as  truly  in  being  before  it  c.r-iuls — 
stands  Old — visibly,  tangibly,  outwardly.  Every  one  who  studies  the  pas- 
jsnge  closely,  must  feel,  we  think,  that  the  idea  of  foreknowledge,  simply, 
of  a  future  event,  or  of  events  as  future,  does  not  come  up  to  the  mj-steri- 
ous  strength  and  breadth  of  the  language.  Not  fore-knowledge,  {presci- 
ence,) but  omniscience,  is  the  great  thought  of  the  Psalm.  "No  darkncsx 
can  hide  from  Thee."  "  The  darkness  is  light  about  Him."  He  looks 
through  shades  which  neither  our  optical  nor  our  spiritual  vision  can  hope 
to  penetrate,  and  sees  what  IS — sees  it  directly,  not  only  in  the  timeless 
ideas,  but  in  the  very  natures  he  has  made  to  bring  it  out  in  chronological 
existence. 

We  might  say,  in  addition,  that  such  a  thought  of  human  origin,  if  we 
could  suppose  it  entertained  by  the  Psalmist,  could  not  be  called  scientific 
or  philosophical.  Though  inspired,  it  might  still  lie  naturally  in  his  mind, 
■and  in  perfect  harmony  with  the  ancient  thinking  about  man  as  the  child 
of  earth,  formed  somehow  in  her  womb,  yet  having,  at  the  same  tiiiio,  a 
high  and  heavenly  origin  not  only  of  his  spiritual  being,  but  also  of  his 
physical  existence.  "  He  is  of  the  earth  earthy,"  and  yet  we  are  not  driven 
by  this  to  suppose  that  there  was  not  an  unearthly,  a  supernatural,  a  trans- 
<;ending  process  even  in  his  physical  creation. 


HOW   DID    GOD   MAKE   THE   FIRST   TREE?  211 

we  can  learn,— that  same  potency  which  afterwards  pro- 
duced its  first  material  seed,  and  had  its  first  material 
semination,  after  the  manner  which  nature  has  ever  since 
exhibited.  Did  he  make  the  tree  by  outward  plastic 
shaping,  leaves,  branches,  roots  and  all,  with  its  perfect 
seed  fully  formed,  a  tree  that  never  grew,  a  seed  that 
was  never  born  from  any  parent  stem,  and  then  place  it  in 
the  earth,  just  as  a  human  gardener  makes  a  place  for  the 
transplanted  oak  and  gathers  the  earth  around  its  roots  ? 
If  the  strangely  mysterious  language  will  not  allow  us  to 
hold  this,  then  must  we  take  a  view,  which,  whatever 
may  have  been  the  duration  or  manner  of  the  growth, 
involves  all  the  difficulties  about  antecedent  laws,  and 
typos,  and  organizing  seminal  powers,  which  some  men 
would  so  easily  and  so  ignorantly  avoid  under  cover  of 
the  opprobrious  name,  as  it  seems  to  them,  of  Platonism. 
But  the  whole  ground  is  too  serious  and  too  sacred  for 
any  rash  speculation.  We  are  greatly  attracted,  we  say 
again,  by  this  doctrine  of  ideas,  and  that  corresponding 
doctrine  of  types  whose  adoption  by  modern  science  we 
would  regard  as  one  of  its  highest  glories  ;  yet,  still,  we 
can  as  truly  say,  that,  if  demanded  by  any  clear  autho- 
rity of  revelation,  we  would  yield  it,  at  once,  to  the  higher 
teacher,  if  not  without  a  passing  regret,  yet  with  a  con- 
viction that  the  truth  which  comes  in  its  place  must  far 
more  than  make  compensation  for  its  loss.  The  Bible 
here  is  everything  or  nothing.  On  this  great  question 
of  origin,  as  well  as  on  that  of  destiny,  there  must  be  no 
thrusting  it  aside  on  the  ground  of  its  province  being 
solely  the  moral,  as  some  would  define  the  term,  in  dis- 
tinction from  the  physical.  Who  gave  them  power  to 
run  this  line,  or  what  peculiar  qualifications  have  they 


212       THE  REAL   ATHEISM   OP   "THE   VESTIGES." 

for  settling  this  boundary  ?  In  determining  the  line,  and 
on  both  sides  of  the  line,  as  far  as  it  assumes  to  teach,  the 
Bible  is  everything  or  nothing.  If  we  can  only  establish 
this  position  in  the  minds  and  hearts  of  our  readers,  "we 
shall  have  done  some  service  to  the  Church,  for  the  sake 
of  which  we  would  yield  any  of  our  own  particular  inter- 
pretations, however  prized  as  falling  in  with  certain  views, 
or  whatever  of  personal  value  they  may  have  acquired 
as  the  fruit  of  severe  labor  and  some  faithful  study. 

The  atheism  of  "  The  Vestiges"  is  not  simply  in  its 
doctrine  of  development  of  new  'species  in  nature  ;  for 
all  science  may  be  defied  to  show  why  God  might  not 
have  made  such  a  law,  and  put  into  nature  such  a  con- 
tinuation of  life,  as  well  as  the  equally  wondrous,  if  not 
in  some  of  its  aspects  still  more  wondrous  development 
of  individual  life  from  individual  —  certainly  more  won- 
drous when  predicated  of  the  higher  organisms,  and  es- 
pecially of  humanity,  than  any  mere  growth  of  animal- 
culse  out  of  conditions  hitherto  unperceived  by  science. 
The  atheism  of  The  Vestiges,  we  say,  is  not  in  this,  but 
in  its  studied  exclusion  of  the  divine  and  supernatural,  as 
far  as  in  conception  they  can  be  excluded,  although  barely 
admitted  from  a  logical  necessity  at  one  and  that  the 
remotest  end  of  the  scale.  It  is,  along  Avith  this,  the 
ignoring  of  the  Bible,  although  the  author  professes  all 
respect  for  the  Scriptures.  We  have  no  right  to  say 
that  this  profession  of  respect  is  any  less  sincere  than 
that  of  the  writer  in  the  Bibliotheca.  In  both,  Bibhcal 
interpretation  is  the  boat,  and  science  the  strong  current 
in  which  it  floats,  and  by  which  its  course  is  to  be  con- 
trolled and  harmonized.  The  religious  world  may,  per- 
haps, get  its  eyes  open  to  discover  that  if  the  helm  is  to 


MYTHICAL   VIEW   OF   MOSAIC   ACCOUNT.  213 

be  thus  surrendered,  it  will  make  but  little  difference  in 
what  direction  the  boat  drifts.  Faith  is  as  truly  gone  in 
the  one  case  as  in  the  other.  It  is  this  claim  of  science, 
and  this  giving  up  of  the  pilotage  that  is  the  real  natural- 
ism, the  more  dangerous,  perhaps,  the  more  piously  it 
talks  of  harmonies.  These  have  not  been  made  from  in- 
terpretation. In  fact,  the  very  thought  is  contemptuously 
discarded  as  a  false  pretense  —  as  a  "clapping  0/  the 
hands  in  great  glee  at  the  thought  of  keeping  up  with  the 
progress  of  science,"  when  they  are  only  carried  along  on 
its  triumphant  wave.  Have  we  not  some  grounds  for 
saying,  that  there  is  really  less  heart  in  such  an  easy 
harmony  than  in  doubt  itself?  —  the  sorrowful  doubt,  it 
may  be,  that  rejects  all  hope  of  reconciliation.  The 
writer  feels  that  he  can  never  stand  on  any  other  ground 
than  that  of  the  plenary  inspiration  of  the  Scriptures  in 
the  most  common  sense  of  the  term,  and  of  the  absolute 
verity  of  the  Mosaic  account.  If  forced  from  this,  he 
must  "  walk  mournfully  beneath  the  sun"  in  utter  despair 
of  any  satisfying  light  from  science  or  philosophy  on  the 
great  questions  of  origin  and  destiny.  But  he  would  not 
judge  others  by  his  own  temperament,  or  his  own  position. 
If  any  ^an  hold  on  in  some  other  resting  place,  God  keep 
their  feet  from  slipping.  It  may  be  that  one  who,  pressed 
with  difficulties,  takes  the  Mosaic  account  as  mythical,  or 
adopts  the  theory  of  partial  inspiration,  may  really  have 
a  more  honest  and  hearty  love  for  the  Bible  than  others 
who  claim  a  higher  orthodoxy.  It  may  be,  that  he  sees 
not,  or  that  he  shuts  his  eyes  to  the  difficulties  that  press 
upon  his  own  lower  path,  but  it  is  very  possible,  too,  that 
he  may  have  a  deeper  sense  of  the  preciousness  of  the 
Scriptures,  and  that  he  would  feel  more  grief  for  their 


214  NO   HEART  IN   SCIENTIFIC   HARMONIES. 

total  loss,  than  many,  whether  in  the  scientific  or  reli- 
gious ranks,  who  prattle  away  about  harmonies,  and  yet 
have  too  little  hearty  interest  in  the  great  question  of  a 
written  revelation,  to  make  them  feel  a  doubt,  or  gird 
themselves  to  the  encounter  of  a  seriou.8  difficulty. 


THE   SIX   DAYS  AS  FOUND   BY   SCIENCE.  215 


CHAPTER  VIIL 


THE   SIX   DAYS   AS   FOUND   BY   SCIENCE. 

The  Writer  in  the  Andover  Bibliotheca — His  Nebular  The- 
ory—  The  Reviewer  Jinds  no  Difficidties — A  hearty  Faith 
is  not  so  easily  satisfied — The  chief  interest  of  the  Mosaic 
Account — \st.  Its  Supernatural  Character — Id.  Its  Hex- 
ameral  Division — The  true  Greatness  of  the  llosaic  Ac- 
count—  Greatness  of  Moses  as  compared  toith  Aristotle  or 
Bacon — Professor  Dana's  Seven  Points — Of  the  First 
Three  Geology  knows  nothing — Her  Protests  or  Acceptan- 
ces of  no  Value — Rests  in  Nature —  The  Scientific  Scheme 
of  Creation — As  well  Six  Hundred  Days  as  Six — Tlie 
Reviewer' s  Boat  driven  hy  two  Forces — The  Word  Begin- 
ning— Sudden  leap  from  the  Birth  of  the  Light  to  the 
Growing  of  the  Mosses — Immense  Distances  from  which 
Light  travels —  Want  of  Chronological  Harmony — Im- 
mense Hiatus  in  the  Second  Day — A  Modest  Note — Spec- 
tral Light  of  Geology —  The  Rakia  or  Firmament —  Was 
it  the  Breaking  up  of  the  Nehidar  Rings  ? — Had  Moses 
any  such  View,  either  as  Fact  or  Conception  ? 

It  would  seem  to  be  a  part  of  Professor  Dana's  plan,  in 
his  two  Andover  articles,  to  give  a  scientific  theory  of 
Creation.  The  book  reviewed  is  condemned,  not  so 
much  for  a  failure  in  the  only  thing  it  professed  to  do, 
that  is  in  its  interpretation  of  the  Scriptural  account,  (for 
of  this  the  reviewer  has  not  a  word  to  say,)  as  for  some 


216  SCIENTIFIC   RELIGIONISM. 

deficiency  in  not  coming  fully  up  to  that  nebular  hypo- 
thesis of  creation  which  has  become  so  great  a  favorite 
Tivith  certain  scientific  "writers,  and  vf'ith.  which  they  so 
please  some  of  the  religious  people  delighted  as  they  are 
to  be  taught  that  Moses  is  so  much  more  scientific  than 
they  had  ever  imagined,  and  still  more  delighted  to  find 
the  Bible  actually  believed  by  such  wonderfully  clever 
men.  It  strengthens  their  faith  greatly.  The  testimony 
of  a  mere  theologian,  or  of  a  mere  Bible  student,  would 
not  have  half  the  value.  It  is  this  assumption  of  the 
widest  cosmological  view,  that  in  the  estimation  of  some 
minds  gives  the  article  in  the  Bibliotheca  Sacra  a  credit, 
perhaps,  that  would  not  have  been  conceded  to  a  less 
ambitious  attempt.  And  yet  it  is  not  easy  to  make  out 
what  the  outlines  and  features  of  this  hypothesis  truly 
are.  It  is  presented  in  such  a  rambling  method,  and 
there  are  so  many  ambitious  suggestions  that  lead  the 
writer  away  from  any  regular  path,  that  it  is  very  difficult 
to  determine  what  it  really  is  in  itself,  and  still  more  dif- 
ficult to  determine  that  "  harmony"  between  it  and  the 
Scriptures,  without  which  the  title  of  the  article  is  all  a 
deceptive  misnomer,  in  other  words — a  pious  fraud. 
He  makes  the  Mosaic  creation  commence  with  the  very 
beginning  of  matter  and  all  worlds.  It  is  cosmological 
in  its  widest  sense,  embracing  the  nebuloe  and  nebular 
condensations,  the  throwing  off  the  rings  that  formed  the 
solar  system,  and  that  whole  process  which  belongs  as 
much  to  the  material  formation  of  the  remotest  visible 
or  invisible  bodies,  as  of  our  earth  and  moon.  There  is 
no  other  meaning  to  be  attached  to  his  remarks  on  the 
author's  use  of  the  word  beginning.  He  is  altogether 
hypercritical,  or  this  word  "  beginning"  as  employed 


MXDS   NO   DIFFICULTIES.  217 

in  the  Bible  account  of  creation,  is  taken  by  him  for  the 
absolute  beginning  of  all  material  existence,  the  widest 
in  space,  the  remotest  in  time.  But  it  is  folly  to  talk  of 
Professor  Dana's  views  of  the  Bible  account.  What  he 
presents  does  not  lean  upon  the  Bible  at  all,  and  he  takes 
no  pains  even  to  give  it  that  appearance.  In  general 
it  marches  on  independent  of  the  Scriptures,  all  along 
assuming  a  harmony,  but  made  out  on  no  Bible  grounds. 
It  is  taken  for  granted  that  it  must  be  so,  and  this,  per- 
haps, to  a  careless  reader,  might  look  like  a  reverence  for 
the  Scriptures  too  profound  to  allow  the  question  of  dif- 
ference to  be  even  so  much  as  raised.  Now  we  have 
not  the  least  doubt  of  Professor  Dana's  sincere  belief  in 
the  Scriptures,  and  yet  we  venture  the  paradox  that  a  very 
hearty  faith  would  not  have  been  so  quiet,  so  calm,  in  its 
undisturbed  assurance  of  a  hypothetical  harmony.  The 
immeasurable  importance  of  the  questions  concerned 
would  have  made  it  more  anxious.  It  would  have  found 
more  difficulties,  such  as  a  hearty  study  of  the  Bible  ever 
finds,  although,  at  the  same  time,  it  gets  from  the  same 
source  a  light,  and  strength,  and  grace,  we  may  say, 
to  overcome  them.  Now  this  is  a  peculiar  feature  of 
Professor  Dana's  articles ;  there  are  no  difficulties  in 
them,  none  whatever ;  everything  is  as  easy  as  the 
latest  geological  theory.  All  he  had  to  do  was  to  weave 
in  his  nebular  hypothesis  in  the  way  best  adapted  to  show 
off  this  latest  science  in  some  of  its  more  specious  aspects. 
To  look  into  the  Bible,  and  to  study  the  Bible  with  the 
hearty  purpose  of  seeing  how  all  this  really  agreed  with 
the  language  of  Moses,  would  have  been  troublesome. 
It  would  have  been  to  meet  with  perplexities.  There 
would  have  been  some  danger,  too,  of  running  on  posi- 

19 


218  A  HEARTY  ANTAGONISM. 

tions  that  certain  minds  might,  perhaps,  call  infidel.  It 
would  have  required,  moreover,  let  us  boldly  saj  it,  a 
patience  and  a  discrimination  of  mind  that  are  not  de- 
manded by  the  easy  natural  sciences,  and  we  do  not  ex- 
cept even  Geology  from  the  remark.  It  is  easier  to  form 
theories  here  than  to  get  at  the  fair  meaning  of  old  words, 
and  to  lay  a  good  foundation  for  the  interpretation  of  an 
ancient  document.  It  is  this  absence  of  all  difficulties 
in  the  Andover  articles  that  we  would  especially  present 
to  the  reader's  notice.  If  he  is  intelligent  he  can  not 
help  drawing  the  right  inference.  It  must  be  seen,  how- 
ever, that  it  gave  their  writer  in  some  respects  the  ad- 
vantage as  a  critic.  Having  nothing  in  his  own  way,  he 
had  the  more  leisure  to  make  objections,  and  find  diffi- 
culties in  the  way  of  others.  To  use  the  language  of  a 
gentleman  of  high  scientific  standing — "  having  no  real 
disagreement  with  the  ultimate  conclusions  of  the  work, 
he  had  the  fairer  opportunity  for  charging  on  the  book 
faults  and  deficiencies  which,  even  if  real,  had  nothing 
to  do  with  its  true  design.  Had  there  been  a  hearty 
antagonism  on  the  merits,  instead  of  a  spirit  of  mere  sci- 
entific petulance,  it  would  have  given  a  different  tone  to 
the  whole  article.  Such  a  hearty  antagonism  on  the 
merits,  would  naturally  have  compelled  something  like 
a  fair  statement  of  the  real  positions  of  the  book  assailed, 
for  the  very  purpose  that  they  might  be  the  more  squarely 
and  availably  met." 

But  to  return  to  Professor  Dana's  theory  of  creation. 
We  see  but  little  of  outhne  or  feature  in  it  any  way  — 
nothing  but  that  which  the  next  general  change  in  geo- 
logical language,  and  geological  speculation,  may  destroy 
as  easily  as  it  has  created.     But  how  does  it  agree  with 


AS  WELL  SIX  HUNDRED  DAYS  AS  SIX.     219 

the  Scriptural  account  ?  This  is  here  the  question,  the 
only  question.  Where  is  the  Omnific  Word,  the  Brood- 
ing Spirit,  the  iiaming,  the  dividing,  the  working — the 
rest  ?  Not  but  that  these  ideas,  or  some  of  them,  may  be 
suggested  by  the  scientific  theory  if  such  theory  is  read 
by  the  lamp  of  the  Bible, —  but  are  they  AYords  or  ideas 
that  would  have  ever  come  out  of  any  discoveries  of  sci- 
ence alone,  and  upon  its  own  ground  ?  He  has  much  to 
say  of  light  and  life  ;  talks  eloquently  of  types  and  laws^ 
taking  good  care,  however,  not  to  have  much  meaning  in 
the  phrases,  and  specially  avoiding  all  the  great  and  real 
difficulties  connected  with  these  most  mysterious  ideas. 
He  preaches  finely  about  "  God  in  nature,"  trying  to  re- 
present the  author  as  very  heathenish  on  these  points,  or 
at  least  far  less  orthodox  than  the  Reviewer.  He  tells  us 
why  God  made  mammaha,  when  he  did,  and  why  he  did 
not  make  them  before.  He  has  much  to  say, —  in  fact 
he  talks  everywhere  about  "  the  harmony  ;"  but  where 
do  we  find  the  six  days  ?  No  man  can  read  this  preten- 
tious article,  so  ostentatiously  entitled  "  Science  and  the 
Bible,"  and  derive  from  it  any  reason  why  there  should 
be  six  days  any  more  than  sixty  or  six  hundred.  In  the 
book  they  are  the  prominent  feature.  In  interpretation 
they  could  not  be  overlooked.  They  were  the  res  gestce, 
the  real  matters  of  fact  narrated.  In  the  scientific  theory 
they  are  made  entirely  subordinate.  They  are  to  be 
taken  only  in  a  very  loose  and  general  way.  It  is  one 
of  the  points  of  the  harmony  where  we  must  not  be  too 
pressing.  The  scientific  side  is  so  taken  up  with  that 
other  idea  of  antiquity  that  it  almost  wholly  overlooks  the 
remarkable  Scriptural  feature  of  the  hexameral  succes- 
sion, so  distinctly"  defined  by  the  regular  supernatural 


220  IDEA   OF   DURATION   SUBORDINATE. 

divisiorij  and  of  so  much  more  importance,  both  in  itself, 
and  for  the  consistency  of  the  narrative,  than  any  dura- 
tion be  it  long  or  short.  It  is  just  as  much  a  succession, 
whether  passed  through  in  six  very  long  days,  or  in  six 
very  short  days.  The  six-fold  aspect  preserved,  nothing 
more  need  be  asked  for  the  integrity  or  consistency  of 
Scripture  ;  but  take  this  away,  or  render  it  confused,  or 
indefinite,  with  nothing  but  forced  arbitrary  lines  to  mark 
■the  divisions,  and  the  fair  face  of  the  narrative  is  blotted ; 
■that  by  which  we  know  it  is  no  longer  recognized ;  its 
identity  is  gone. 

The  other  idea  of  duration  is  subordinate  to  this.  We 
l)elieve  the  Bible  language  to  be  fully  and  fairly  consis- 
tent with  the  most  remote  antiquity, —  using  the  term 
relatively  as  compared  with  historical  times  now  mea- 
sured and  passing  upon  the  earth ;  yet  still  short  times 
might  satisfy  the  same  language,  especially  in  the  absence 
of  any  outward  riew  that  might  give  interest  or  import- 
ance to  one  or  the  other  aspect.  Now,  it  is  this  idea  of 
antiquity  that  has  been  regarded  as  the  legitimate  prize 
of  Geological  science.  Hence  the  absurd  sensitiveness 
at  the  claim  of  discovery  from  any  other  source,  even 
though  that  source  be  the  Word  of  God.  Hence,  too, 
the  strange  disposition,  not  only  to  sacrifice  to  this  every 
other  feature  of  the  Mosaic  account,  but  even  to  assail 
with  unfair  criticism  and  odiously  disparaging  epithets 
any  effort  that  may  arrive  at  the  same  or  a  similar  con- 
clusion by  the  hermeneutical  road. 

We  have  spoken  of  the  six  day  division  as  being  a  very 
prominent  and  indispensable  feature  of  the  Mosaic  history 
of  creation.  But  it  is  not  even  here  we  are  to  look  for 
its  hisrhest  interest.     This  hes  rather  in  the  fact  of  its 


TRUE   GRANDEUR   OP   SCIENCE.  221 

being  a  supernatural  revelation  from  God  himself.  It  is 
its  own  supernaturalism,  whatever  it  maj  reveal  of  the 
natural,  or  of  any  other  facts.  In  some  previous  remarks 
we  may  seem  to  have  disparaged  the  objects  both  of  sci- 
ence and  of  revelation,  by  representing  our  greatest  times 
and  spaces  as  such  comparative  infinitesimals.  But,  in 
truth,  such  a  view  does  not  at  all  affect  the  latter,  or  di- 
minish its  true  greatness.  We  might  say  the  same  of 
science  when  considered  in  a  proper  light.  The  true 
grandeur  of  science  is  this  discovery  of  its  own  littleness. 
It  is  most  sublime  when  most  lowly,  most  truly  great, 
when,  instead  of  boasting  of  its  exploits  in  the  spirit  of 
our  scientific  Reviewer,  "  it  puts  its  hand  upon  its  mouth 
and  its  mouth  in  the  dust," — if  not  in  the  true  fear  of 
the  Lord,  at  least  in  the  awe  of  the  Infinite  and  the  Un- 
known. But  taking  science  as  exhibited  to  us  by  such 
writers,  it  can  never  have  any  real  or  absolute  greatness. 
It  must  ever  be  a  quantitative  thing,  and  can,  therefore, 
never  be  certain  of  anything  more  than  an  infinitesinial 
rank.  It  has  no  other  rule  than  that  of  amount  in  some 
aspect — amount  in  time,  in  space,  or  in  power.  This  is 
the  only  value  it  knows  or  can  know, —  how  long  a  thing 
exists,  how  much  space  it  occupies,  tvhat  it  does,  or  the 
amount  of  dynamical  action  it  manifests  in  such  space  — 
and  these  are  all  comparative.  Their  rank  ever  varies 
with  a  supposed  extent  of  the  universe.  Their  value, 
intellectual  as  well  as  physical,  ever  sinks  with  the  sup- 
position, the  rational  supposition,  of  an  unknown  immea- 
surably if  not  infinitely  exceeding  the  utmost  that  is 
known  or  can  be  known  respecting  them.  In  the  same 
ratio  sinks  the  intellectual  rank  of  minds  whose  utmost 
attainment  in  the  knowledge  of  the  universe  can  only  be 

19* 


222  TRUE   GREATNESS   OF  THE   SCRIPTURES. 

measured  on  the  same  comparative  scale.  Hence  it  is 
no  dream,  no  fancy,  but  a  most  sober  deduction  from  the 
seeming  infinity  we  see  stretching  out  around  us  and 
above  us,  when  we  say,  that  the  times  of  the  scientific 
man  may  be  infinitesimal  moments,  his  worlds,  of  which 
he  has  so  much  to  say,  miscroscopic  motes,  himself  an 
animalcule,  and  his  boasted  knowledge,  as  compared 
with  higher  intelligences,  but  the  dullest  instinct  of  the 
worm.  This  may  be  true.  Leave  him  to  his  science 
alone,  and  all  her  boasted  laws  and  analogies  would  go 
to  show  that  in  the  immensity  of  space,  time,  and  power, 
it  actually  u  true. 

Such  is  its  greatness  on  its  own  favorite  scale  of  mea- 
surement. Nothing  can  protect  it  from  the  rigid  appli- 
cation of  its  own  rule  of  quantity  in  one  of  these  three 
degrees.  Such  is  the  greatness  of  Geology,  in  itself  con- 
sidered. But  the  Scriptures  have  a  different  greatness, 
an  absolute  greatness  not  depending  for  its  rank  or  value 
•on  any  known  or  unknown  size  or  age  of  the  universe. 
It  has  the  same  greatness  whether  there  be  one  earth,  or 
bilHons  of  solar  and  stellar  systems,  whether  its  creative 
times  be  six  solar  days,  or  a  thousand  years,  or  ten  thou- 
■sand  times  ten  thousand  ages.  It  has  a  greatness  differ- 
ing essentially  from  this,  and  which  no  comparison,  or 
mere  quantitative  relations,  can  ever  affect.  In  what, 
then,  does  it  consist  ?  We  answer, —  Not  in  its  times  and 
divisions,  great  as  they  are,  not  in  its  antiquity,  or  its 
revelations  of  antiquity,  comparatively  vast  as  we  believe 
them  to  be,  but  in  the  fact  of  its  being  a  revelation.  This 
takes  it  at  once  out  of  the  inconstant  and  ever  depressing 
rule  of  quantity,  by  connecting  it  directly  with  the  Eter- 
nal and  the  Infinite.     It  is  the  fact  that  it  is  God  speak- 


NOT   COMPARATIVE   BUT   CONSTANT.  223 

ing  to  US  worms  of  the  dust — the  Great  Soul  of  the  Uni- 
verse (we  are  not  afraid  to  use  the  language)  throwing 
nature  aside,  taking  off  her  vail,  manifesting  his  ineffable 
personality  by  talking  directly  to  us,  not  waiting  till  by 
searching  nature  we  find  out  God,  but  finding  us  who 
were  otherwise  eternally  lost, — graciously  coming  down  to 
us  through  all  space  and  time  and  height  of  being,  tell- 
ing us  of  himself,  and  how  he  made  this  world  in  which 
we  live,  giving  us  some  of  the  steps  in  the  process,  and 
that,  too,  in  language  wherein  the  common  mind  is  on  a 
par  with  the  most  scientific,  revealing  to  us  wherein  he 
made  use  of  nature,  and  how  from  time  to  time  (be  they 
long  or  short)  he  came  forth  personally  from  his  own 
supernatural  celestial  sphere.  This  is  the  interest  of  the 
Mosaic  narrative,  an  interest,  we  say,  remaining  the  same 
constant  quantity  whether  there  be  none,  or  billions  of 
other  worlds  beside  this,  or  billions  of  other  ages  before 
our  mundane  history  commenced.  There  is  a  sublimity 
in  the  other  features  ;  but  it  sinks  in  presence  of  this  fact 
that  the  wondrous  history  itself  is  a  voice  from  the  sphere 
above  nature,  from  the  "  firmament  that  is  over  the 
heads  of  the  living  powers,"  a  voice  from  the  Eternal 
and  the  Infinite,  talking  to  us  and  telling  us  what  science 
never  could  have  told,  and  for  which  she  never  would 
have  had  even  a  language,  had  not  revelation,  from  the 
earliest  times,  furnished  the  ideas  and  conceptions  on 
which  such  language  is  founded.  She  might  have  found 
the  same  facts  she  now  finds,  and  traced  the  same  phe- 
nomena, and  the  same  sequences  of  phenomena  ;  but  she 
would  never  have  known  creation,  she  would  never  have 
found  the  supernatural,  she  would  never  have  risen  above 
the  sphere  of  physical  causation.     As  long  as  men  kept 


224         MOSES   GREATER  THAN   NEWTON  —  WHY? 

this  early  ligbt,  the  "  visible  things  did  manifest  to  them 
the  Eternal  Power  and  Godhead."  When  they  lost  it, 
as  Paul  tells  us,  the  religious  instinct  remained,  but  it 
sank  into  that  nature  worship  of  which  all  heathen  mytho- 
logies, and  nearly  all  heathen  philosophy,  were  but  the 
direct  or  mediate  products. 

This,  then,  is  that  other  kind  of  greatness  which  the 
unphilosophical  science,  if  we  may  employ  the  term  for 
an  important  yet  too  little  recognized  distinction,  can 
never  reach.  This  is  the  greatness  which  is  dependent 
on  no  real  or  hypothetical  size  of  the  universe  sinking 
every  part  into  nothingness  by  its  comparison  with  the 
whole.  This  is  a  greatness  which  is  measured  by  no 
flowing  terms  of  quantity,  but  by  a  constant  equation 
giving  the  constant  term  of  nearness  to  God  the  great 
central  heart  of  the  world.  It  is  the  value  that  never 
changes ;  it  is  the  theo-centric  position  that  has  no  paral- 
lax. It  is  that  which  made  Moses  so  much  greater  than 
Aristotle,  or  Archimedes,  or  Galileo,  or  Newton.  This 
is  the  greatness  that  makes  one  verse  of  the  revelation 
given  through  Moses  of  more  value,  and  its  right  inter- 
pretation of  more  real  importance,  than  all  the  demon- 
strations of  the  Mechanique  Celeste,  and  all  the  discov- 
eries of  all  the  Geologists.  It  is  not  the  extent  of  the 
supernatural  announcement,  nor  the  amount  made  known 
to  us  respecting  the  world  ;  for  when  we  are  once  assured 
that  the  divine  voice  has  truly  broken  through  nature, 
there  may  be  as  much  ground  for  faith  in  the  scantiness 
as  in  the  abundance  of  the  revelations.  The  silence  in 
respect  to  that  over  which  the  vail  still  remains,  may  be 
even  more  expressive,  more  sublime,  having  more  reli- 
gious awe,  and  thus  producing  a  closer  confidence,  than 


REVELATION  EQUALLY  GREAT  THOUGH  PARTIAL.  225 

might  have  come  from  its  removal,  even  if  our  souls  could 
bear  the  unveiled  aspect  of  what  God  has  not  seen  fit  to 
make  known.  This  might  be  our  reply  to  some  who 
think  that  the  creative  revelation  is  degraded,  and  made 
unworthy  of  Deity,  by  being  supposed  to  be  confined  to 
our  inferior  earth  instead  of  taking  in  the  whole  universe 
in  space  and  time.  The  rational  soul  longs  for  the  super- 
naturnal ;  it  listens  for  the  supernatural ;  yet  let  it  be 
assured  of  the  voice  and  a  whisper  may  suffice  it.  A 
revelation  thus  given  may  have  respect  to  the  smallest 
part  of  the  kosmos,  to  a  satelHte,  or  a  satellite  of  a  satel- 
lite, and  yet,  on  this  very  account  of  its  being  a  revela- 
tion, have  something  for  us  more  precious,  immeasurably 
more  glorious,  than  all  that  any  inductive  science  has 
discovered,  or  may  yet  discover  in  the  widest  fields  of 
space  and  time.  The  most  astonishing  thing  of  all,  is 
the  fact  that  this  poor  natural  knowledge  —  poor,  we 
mean,  in  the  attitude  assumed  by  the  Reviewer,  though 
having  a  beauty  and  an  honor  when  it  chooses  to  be  mo- 
dest—  should  so  dare  to  put  itself  face  to  face  with  the 
Scriptures ;  not  in  the  attitude  of  a  manly  though  impi- 
ous antagonism,  but  in  the  far  more  insulting  spirit  of 
petulant  rivalship.  For  we  can  give  it  no  other  name 
than  this  when  it  pretends  to  have  superseded  the  neces- 
sity of  interpretation,  and  claims  priority  of  discovery,  as 
though  it  were  some  contemptible  quarrel  about  the  in- 
vention of  a  new  machine,  or  the  first  sight  of  some 
shower  of  meteoric  stones,  or  of  some  broken  asteroid,  or 
some  worthless  comet  still  roaming  among  the  unsettled 
irregularities  of  nature.  There  ai-e  scientific  men  of 
noblest  stamp ;  we  have  professed  our  sincere  respect 
for  them,  and  can  not  be  repeating  it  for  fear  of  being 


226       A   GREAT  WONDER  R'EVEALED   BY   SCIENCE. 

misunderstood.  But  it  may  be  also  said,  that  among  all 
the  "ft'onders  science  reveals,  there  is  nothing  so  truly 
wonderful  as  the  fact  that  some  of  its  professors  can  stand 
in  the  presence  of  these  four  great  Scriptural  ideas,  the 
Word,  the  Spirit,  the  Ineffable  Working,  the  Divine  Re- 
pose, and  yet  babble  away  about  their  "  rock  written 
revelation,"  when  their  "highest  decypherings  of  these 
old  palimpsests,  even  where  they  reveal  some  clear  and 
orderly  ideas,  do  not  so  much  as  make  an  approach  to 
these  transcending  verities  of  the  Mosaic  account.  They 
are  still  in  a  region  far  below,  if  not  in  space  and  time, 
yet  in  the  rank  and  grandeur  of  idea.  We  have  a  spe- 
cimen of  this  in  what  may  be  called  Professor  Dana's 
summing  up.  He  makes  seven  points.  The  first  three 
refer  to  the  great  primordial  questions  —  the  true  ideas 
of  nature,  of  matter,  of  natural  causality,  or  growth  as 
having  its  origin  in  a  Divine  Word,  and  its  efficiency  in 
a  Divine  Spirit.  The  others  relate  to  the  phenomenal 
facts  as  they  occur  in  the  order  of  the  Scriptures,  or  the 
supposed  order  of  science.  With  regard  to  the  last  four 
points,  "  Geology,"  says  the  Reviewer,  "  can  make  little 
exception  to  the  author's  conclusions  ;" — implying  that 
she  differs  from  him  on  the  first  three.  Geology  is  very 
gracious  here ;  but  need  any  intelligent  reader  be  told 
that  all  this  parade  of  points  is  shown  to  be  absurd,  and 
all  this  graciousness  of  Geology  is  nullified  at  once,  by 
the  simple  consideration  that  these  first  three  must,  from 
their  very  nature,  lie  entirely  out  of  her  domain,  so  that 
her  protests,  or  her  acceptances,  should  she  make  any, 
are  really  of  no  value  whatever.  Revelation  may  settle 
these  points,  or  leave  them  unsettled.  Philosophy  may 
legitimately  entertain  them  as  matters  of  abstract  specu- 


HESTS   IN  NATUKE.  227 

lation ;  but  to  Geology,  or  natural  science,  in  the  com- 
mon acceptation  of  the  term,  they  belong  not  at  all,  and 
no  true  man  of  science  who  is,  at  the  same  time,  philo- 
sophical enough  to  understand  what  truly  falls  within 
her  province,  would  ever  think  of  claiming  them  as  sub- 
jects of  any  inductive  or  scientific  decision. 

In  a  similar  absurd  tone  of  authority,  the  Reviewer 
asserts  that  "  the  intervals  of  rest  in  nature  which  Pro- 
fessor L.  speaks  of,  are  not  in  the  records  of  the  earth." 
Has  he  decyphered  those  records  ?  lias  he  clearly  inter- 
preted even  their  title  pages  ?  Is  he  sure  that  he  under- 
stands the  language  in  which  they  are  written  ?  Men 
may  get  hold  of  an  alphabet  to  some  imperfect  extent,  as 
is  the  case  in  respect  to  some  of  the  Assyrian  inscriptions, 
and  yet  the  words,  much  more  the  meaning,  remain  a 
deep  enigma.  Does  he  certainly  know  what  really  is 
retrogradation  in  these  movements, —  what  part  of  the 
cycle  is  directly  onward  and  upward,  what  is  the  reverse, 
or  the  appai-ently  reverse  direction,  or  what  is  the  stand- 
ard by  which  up  and  down,  higher  and  lower,  are  really 
to  be  determined  ?  He  contradicts  himself,  moreover,  in 
the  very  next  sentence ;  or  else  it  has  no  meaning. 
"  The  longest  suspension  of  life  in  North  America  took 
place,  as  nearly  as  we  can  learn,  between  the  coal  period 
and  the  middle  reptilian."  There  the  reader  has  it  as 
exact  as  it  can  be  fixed  by  the  geological  almanack, 
within  a  few  thousand  years  more  or  less  ;  or  "as  near 
as  we  can  learn"  about  such  ancient  matters ;  a  very 
modest  proviso  truly.  An  occasion  for  the  display  of 
geological  technics  and  scientific  exactness  bhnds  the 
writer,  as  usual,  to  the  inconsistency  in  which  they  in- 
volve him.     A  suspension  of  life  certainly  looks  very 


228      SCIENCE   TAKES   REFUGE   IN   A  PRIORI   IDEAS. 

much  like  a  "  rest  in  nature."  The  Reviewer,  however, 
shudders  at  the  impious  thought  that  there  may  be  dete- 
riorations or  backward  movements  in  the  physical  history. 
It  is  in  the  way  of  the  favorite  notion  of  an  ever  right 
onward,  right  upward,  or  rectilineal  progress.  And  this 
might  be  rational,  if  physical  development,  or  the  perfec= 
tion  of  nature,  were  the  great  end  in  the  divine  kingdom. 
This  end,  to  be  sure,  is  all  that  science  can  legitimately 
look  for,  as  long  as  she  confines  her  vision  within  her  own 
field,  and  even  this  she  can  only  guess.  As  she  walks 
alone  among  the  catacombs  of  geology,  with  her  dim  lamp 
revealing  more  darkness  than  light,  with  death  and  disso- 
lution all  around  her,  and  the  ghosts  of  long  extinguished 
life  starting  up  everywhere  in  the  midst  of  former  ruin 
and  decay,  what  can  she  do,  or  rather  what  can  her 
votary  do,  but  to  assume  that  there  is  some  clue  to  the 
labyrinth,  some  path  that  amid  all  these  windings  and 
turnings  may  lead  again  to  the  upper  air  of  heaven,  thus 
making  every  seemingly  backward  or  circular  movement 
a  progress  after  all.  But  where  does  science,  or  rather 
the  scientific  man,  get  this  idea  ?  Nature  does  not  teach 
it  to  him.  She  reveals  broken  planets,  extinguished 
stars  ;  her  nebulae  may  be  systems  going  out,  the  smoke 
and  cinders  of  old  wasted  worlds.  What  has  been  may 
be  again  ;  this  is  certainly  fair  Baconianism  ;  the  shifting 
scenes  may  bring  once  more  upon  the  stage  the  old  catas- 
trophies  with  ten-fold  greater  ruin.  What  right  has  sci- 
ence, frightened  by  this,  to  leave  her  old  inductions,  to 
abandon  in  terror  her  facts,  of  which,  at  other  times  she 
boasts  so  loudly,  and  run  for  shelter  to  a  priori  ideas,  or 
to  the  lessons  really  learnt  from  revelation  but  which 
she  pretends  to  read  in  the  worn  rocks  of  the  earth  and 


NO   SURE   EVIDENCE   OF   PROGRESS   IN   NATURE.    229 

the  shadowy  nebulie  of  the  skies.  In  nature  there  is  no 
sure  evidence  of  progress,  that  may  not,  at  any  time,  be 
destroyed  by  the  signs  of  some  greater  catastrophe.  If 
Tve  believe  in  a  progress  on  the  tvhole,  or  of  the  whole,  it 
is  an  a  priori  idea  having  its  birth  in  an  irrepressible  long- 
ing of  the  soul,  instead  of  any  reliable  conclusion  of  in- 
ductive science  ;  but  even  such  a  progress  of  the  whole, 
as  a  whole,  may  be  perfectly  consistent,  scientifically  con- 
sistent, with  the  relentless  sacrifice  and  destruction  of 
parts, — yea,  of  parts  having  an  immeasurably  higher 
rank  than  any  that  science  can  assure  us  of  as  belonging 
to  us  or  to  our  world.  But  when  we  think  of  parts  alone, 
the  highest  known  parts,  nothing  but  a  revelation  from 
God  can  give  us  assurance  of  exemption,  or  any  hope  of 
progress  or  even  of  rest  that  can  fear  no  change.  Let 
revelation  go,  let  appearances  be  our  only  guide,  and 
what  is  our  position  on  the  great  wheel,  that  any  human 
science  should  pretend  to  determine  in  what  direction  it 
is  turning,  or  the  angle  of  curvature  as  it  slowly  bends 
from  the  apparent  tangent  line,  or  on  what  side  of  us  is 
that  unknown  centre  of  motion  from  Avhich  the  upward  or 
downward,  or  advancing  or  retrograding  course  of  that 
curvature  is  to  be  reckoned  ?* 

*  When  viewed  iu  the  light  of  science  alone,  there  is  much  pertinency, 
and  mach  interest,  in  a  strange  query  started  by  Aristotle  in  his  Book  of 
Problems,  (if  it  be  his,)  Sect,  xvii,  Prob.  3  :  "  The  question  is,  how  shall 
we  take  the  terms  before  and  after,  old  and  young  ?  Or,  if  there  can  be  a 
beginning,  a  middle,  and  an  end,  in  a  system  which  goes  through  all  stages, 
and  returns  into  itself,  why  may  not  we  be  in  the  beginning,  as  well  as 
anywhere  else  ?  And  if,  moreover,  there  is  a  circle  of  the  universe,  why 
may  not  the  birth  and  going  out  of  things  be  such  that  they  continually 
come  again,  and  again  perish  ?  On  which  supposition  of  a  cycle,  there 
could  neither  be  beginning  nor  end  properly ;  nor  would  there  be  any  ab- 
solute before  and  of/cr,  such  as  would  come  from  being  nearer  to,  or  more 
distant  from,  any  fixed  beginning.    Nor  would  we,  iu  that  sense, be  before 

20 


230       WORLDS   MAY   DECAY   AS   WELL   AS   TREES. 

But  to  pursue  this  thought,  full  of  interest  as  it  is, 
would  lead  us  too  far  out  of  our  proposed  path.  Profes- 
sor Dana  says  he  can  not  read  even  rests,  much  less 
decays  in  nature.  Other  men,  however,  of  highest  sci- 
ence, say  they  have  discovered  them,  or  what  looks  very 
much  like  them.  Analogy,  too,  might  teach  that  if  there 
are  decays  in  the  lesser  organisms,  and  this  goes  on  as 
far  as  we  can  see,  there  may  be  also  decays  in  the  greater. 
If  the  flower,  the  fruit,  the  tree,  the  animal,  the  man,  the 
nation,  the  race  even,  may  decay,  so  also  may  a-  world ; 
and  so  all  nature,  the  universal  physical  kosmos,  may 
have  its  growth,  its  maximum,  its  retrogradation,  perhaps 
in  time  its  disappearance  or  going  back  among  things 
unseen ;  or  it  may  sufler  any  whole  or  partial  changes 
as  subservient  to  some  higher  world  than  nature,  or  some 
higher  state  of  being,  to  which  all  physical  existence  may 
be  regarded  as  introductory  and  probationary. 

Our  Reviewer  can  not  find  in  the  rocks,  or  the  "  re- 
cords of  the  earth,"  as  he  calls  them,  "  any  evidence  of 
nature's  rests,"  and,  therefore,  he  holds  to  an  eternal 
right  onward  physical  progress.*  But  if  he  can  not  read 
it  in  the  records  of  the  earth,  has  he  never  read  in  the 
Book  of  the  Lord,  that  even  "  the  Heavens  grow  old," 

otliers,  nor  vvonld  they  be  before  us — and  this  because  of  the  continuity," 
T^j  (fuvEySfOtg.  We  have  given  a  very  free  translation,  but  preserving 
the  thought.  It  is  certainly  a  strange  idea,  and  yet  science  might  be  chal- 
lenged for  a  better  view  of  the  time  existence  of  the  universe  than  that  of 
this  repeating  cycle.  An  everlasting  right  onward  progress,  without  rests, 
maxima,  or  perfections  such  as  the  Bible  discloses,  would  be  far  more  dif- 
ficult, besides  seeming  to  necessitate  a  similar  past. 

"This  would  seem  to  necessitate  an  eternal  growth  and  progress  in  the 
past.  But  the  natural  or  scientilico  religionism  can  not  be  consistent. 
The  past  eternity  of  nature  or  matter  is  a  horrid  dogma :  its  eternal  futurity 
of  progress  is  not  only  most  scientific,  but  most  pious  ! 


THE  "  NEW   HEAVENS   AND   NEW  EARTH."        231 

(for  this  is  the  fair  meaning  of  the  Hebrew  iV^i^,  Psalm 
cii,  27)  :  They  wear  away  through  age  ;  they  are  wasted 
and  renewed  like  a  garment ;  "  like  a  vesture  are  they 
folded  up  and  laid  aside,"  when  purposes  in  God's  king- 
dom that  the  science  of  Newton  is  as  incapable  of  fath- 
oming as  that  of  Thales,  may  require  that  nature  should 
decay,  go  out,  yea,  at  some  period,  perhaps,  be  wholly 
dispensed  -with  in  the  higher  economy  of  the  olams. 
The  Scriptures  also  tell  us  of  a  "  renewed  Heavens  and  a 
renewed  earth,"  when  "the  former  things  shall  have 
passed  away,"  and  even  the  old  book  of  the  Heavens,  so 
much  more  glorious  than  the  dark  book  of  the  rocks, 
shall  be  "  rolled  up  as  a  scroll,"  to  make  way  for  the  still 
grander  volume  of  the  grander  spiritual  dispensation. 
What  shall  be  in  the  future  may  have  been  in  the  past. 
We  prefer  these  ideas  of  the  Bible  to  any  guesses  derived 
from  the  rocks  ;  even  though  it  had  not  been  that  a  sci- 
ence equal  in  all  respects  to  that  which  finds  no  deterio- 
rations in  nature  had  found  just  the  contrary.  There 
are  various  readings  of  this  old  book  of  the  rocks  ;  he  is 
a  rash  critic  who  decides  dogmatically  about  disputed 
meanings  without  waiting  for  the  full  variorum  edition 
which  may,  perhaps,  be  in  time  expected.  To  read  the 
Bible  by  them,  at  least  before  that  time,  would  be  some- 
thing like  the  parallel  attempt  now  made  to  confirm  the 
dark  annals  of  the  kings  of  Judah  from  the  supposed 
clearer  records  of  Assyrian  dynasties,  or  to  illume  the 
visions  of  Isaiah  by  the  phosphorescent  light  that  is  dug 
out  of  the  mounds  of  long-buried  Ninevah.  We  would  be 
far  from  disparaging  the  scientific  interest  in  the  one  case, 
or  the  deep  historical  interest  in  the  other.  It  is  the  false 
parallelism  in  which  each  are  sometimes  placed  with  the 


232  SCIENTIFIC    THEORY   OF   CREATION. 

Scriptures  that  calls  out  our  remark.  What  a  terra  inn- 
hrarum  would  Geology  be  if  we  had  no  higher  truths 
than  science  furnishes  ?  How  dark  would  be  the  resur- 
rection of  these  long  buried  cities  if  they  did  not  rise 
before  us  in  the  light  which  the  Bible  itself  sheds  over 
.their  mournful  ruins  ? 

Some  further  attention  is  due  to  the  scientific  theory 
■  of  creation  presented  in  the  two  articles  in  the  Andover 
IBibliotheca  Sacra.  We  find  it  almost  as  much  a  chaos 
;as  the  condition  of  the  earth  on  the  first  day.  There 
rseems  to  have  been  in  the  writer's  mind  a  disproportioned 
•combination  of  two  schemes,  one  the  purely  scientific,  as 
he  would  say,  expressed  in  scientific  language  with  a 
great  display  of  its  technical  richness,  the  other  forced 
into  some  faint  resemblance  to  the  Scriptural  division. 
It  is  evident,  however,  that  this  does  not  come  out  natur- 
ally. It  would  never  have  been  thought  of,  had  it  not 
been  for  the  obvious  propriety  of  having  something  to 
justify  the  title  of  the  article — "Science  and  Revela- 
tion." It  is  a  division  that  does  not  occur  to  scientific 
men  in  other  countries  where  the  boat  drifts  on  a  freer 
current,  and  the  real  influence  from  which  it  is  derived 
lis  shown  in  the  comparative  disposition  of  the  two  author- 
ities. The  boasted  harmony  is  all  on  one  side.  It  is 
the  swelling  and  jubilant  song  of  science,  with  a  very 
slender  thread  of  Scriptural  accompaniment.  If  it  were 
not  so  serious  a  subject,  we  might  say  that  the  full  and 
crowded  notes  of  the  one  are  in  almost  ludicrous  contrast 
to  the  few  thin  quavers  that  here  and  there  betoken  the 
presence  of  the  other.  It  is,  in  fact,  an  accompaniment 
more  marked  by  its  rests  than  by  its  notes  ;  and  cspeci- 


FINDS   NO    DIFFICULTIES.  233 

ally  may  we  say  this  of  that  second  bar  -where  a  long 
semi-breve  silence  fills  up  the  whole  mysterious  space. 
That  there  is  really  no  heart  in  this  harmony,  is  shown, 
moreover,  by  the  fact  of  the  writer's  so  completely  shun- 
ning all  difficulties.  These  met  the  interpreter  directly 
in  the  face.  He  could  not  go  round  them,  nor  over 
them,  nor  keep  silence  about  them.  The  critic,  however, 
has  very  easy  work ;  he  may  notice  them  or  not,  just  as 
he  pleases,  or  just  so  far  as  it  suits  his  science  to  recog- 
nize them.  There  is,  for  example,  the  remarkable  lan- 
guage of  the  second  day  wholly  ignored.  There  is  the 
still  stranger  language  of  the  third  and  fifth, —  "  Let  the 
earth  bring  forth"  —  "Let  the  waters  bring  forth." 
This,  too,  is  passed  over  in  utter  silence,  unless  we  re- 
gard as  a  notice  of  it  the  attempt  to  charge  the  book 
with  naturalism  in  the  interpretation,  without,  however, 
any  effort  to  show  how  the  idea  of  natural  growth  could 
be  kept  out  of  the  fair  exegesis.  But  it  may  be,  that 
the  critic  admits,  in  some  way,  the  natural  growth  of  the 
first  plants.  He  does  not  believe,  perhaps,  that  they 
were  all  outwardly  made,  like  waxen  toys,  made  roots  and 
all,  and  then  stuck  in  the  earth  to  grow  or  that  thus  the 
earth  "  might  bring  them  forth."  Was  it  the  outward 
formation  of  an  outward  seed  outwardly  sown  in  the 
earth  by  the  Almighty  hand  ?  That  has  the  same  diffi- 
culties ;  besides,  we  are  plainly  told  that  the  first  seeds 
grew,  in  some  way,  out  of  the  first  plants.  Was  it  the 
creation  of  a  seminal  power  older  than  both  tree  and  seed 
—  in  other  words,  the  creation  of  a  law,  force,  or  causal 
power,  of  which  the  outward  material  tree,  instead  of 
being  the  germinative  source,  was  itself,  in  truth,  the 
first  effect  '^  That  would  look  like  creating  them  before 

20* 


234  PHILOSOPHICAL   EIFFICULTIES. 

they  were  in  the  earth,  before  they  had  outward  material 
being,  whether  this  before  was  to  be  taken  in  the  order 
of  nature  or  in  that  of  time, —  a  piece  of  Platonic  mysti- 
cism, (take  it  in  either  sense,)  in  which  the  Reviewer 
finds  "  no  edification."  It  would  be  the  creation  of 
ideas  and  laws,  and  these,  as  separate  from  their  pro- 
duets,  are  things  hard  to  be  conceived  of.  Aside,  then, 
from  the  philological,  there  are  great  philosophical  dif- 
ficulties attending  every  view  we  may  take  of  this  most 
mysterious  process  of  creation, —  being  in  fact  almost 
equally  mysterious  on  whatever  side  we  may  survey  them. 
What  appears  very  simple  in  one  aspect,  is  full  of  obscu- 
rity when  contemplated  in  another.  The  direct  outward 
making  of  every  new  material  form,  and  the  imitation^ 
each  time,  of  some  former  type,  without  any  real  growth 
therefrom,  or  physical  connection  therewith,  would  ap- 
pear to  some  minds  perfectly  easy  and  intelligible ;  to 
others  it  would  be  most  unmeaning,  and,  therefore,  most 
difficult  of  comprehension.  Why  could  not  God  have 
made  the  higher  creations  at  once  without  the  previous 
imperfect  stages  that  must  come  and  pass  away  before 
them  ?  There  is  no  science  that  can  even  begin  to  an- 
swer this  question.  The  lizard  without  toes  must  go  be- 
fore the  lizard  that  has-  toes,  and  a  most  scientific  zoolo- 
gist entertains  an  audience  with  this  as  a  marvellous 
proof  of  the  divine  wisdom  and  omniscience.*     We  must 

*The  lecturer  expatiated  on  this  at  great  length.  Some  lizards  bad  toes 
on  their  right  foot,  some  on  their  left,  and  some  on  both  feet.  Some  had 
-one  toe,  some  two  toos,  some  three,  and  some  no  toes  at  all.  It  was  in  an 
tjvangelical  latitude,  and  so  there  was  adapted  to  it  a  very  fine  peroration 
on  the  Divine  plan  and  Divine  Omniscience  as  displayed  in  this  arrange- 
ment, and  the  glory  of  science  in  thus  revealing  it.  It  put  us  in  mind  oi 
the  impious  yet  frank  declaration  of  the  French  atheist,  that  "  the  heav- 
ens declare  the  glory  of  the  astronomer."     It  did  look  as  if  the  glorification 


SKILL   IN   THE    CONSTRUCTION    OF   LIZARDS.        235 

admit,  of  course,  the  divine  presence  in  every  real  tran- 
sition from  less  to  more  ;  but  where  is  the  wisdom  of 
these  repetitions,  or  the  need  of  these  imitations,  if  there 
be  no  physical  connection  between  the  stages,  no  connec- 
tion, in  some  way,  of  a  varied  yet  unbroken  life  ?  There 
is  no  vaticination  in  it  for  the  lower  irrational  race,  and 

of  zoology  or  of  the  zoologist,  was  really  the  uppermost  thouglit  in  the 
mind  of  the  lecturer.  Nor  can  this  remark  be  deemed  uncharitable,  when 
it  is  borne  in  mind  that  all  this  rapture  about  the  divine  plan  in  the  con- 
struction of  lizards,  was  from  one  who  has  so  vehemently  opposed  and  denied 
the  great  central  truth  in  the  divine  plan  for  the  salvation  of  human  souls. 
But  in  itself  the  whole  argument  is  a  deception  and  an  abuse  of  language 
There  is  a  plan  in  these  lizards,  undoubtedly,  and  so  there  would  be  if 
they  had  been  made  in  any  other  manner,  with  toes,  or  without  toes.  But 
as  far  as  science  can  see,  it  is  a  plan  terminating  in  itself,  it  is  an  adapta- 
tion terminating  in  itself,  or  in  something  of  the  same  physical  order.  A 
follower  of  Democritus  and  Lucretius  admits  of  series  and  order  in  nature, 
and  so,  in  one  sense,  of  plans.  They  said  it  was  the  nature  of  nature  to 
work  so,  and  so  they  even  held  to  a  kind  of  instinctive  intelligence  in  na- 
ture, but  were  no  less  atheists  still.  The  divine  Wisdom  or  Omniscience, 
of  which  the  lecturer  speaks  so  confidently,  is  quite  a  different  thing.  It 
has  respect  not  to  the  plan  of  the  lizard  alone,  in  itself  considered,  or  as 
a  means  of  showing  curious  arrangement,  and  thus  the  glory  of  science  in 
discovering  it,  but  to  the  connection  of  the  lizard,  the  serpent,  the  animals 
noxious  and  innoxious,  and  of  man  himself,  in  the  great  plan  of  being. 
The  facts,  in  themselves,  may  be  very  curious,  very  worthy  of  scientific 
exposition,  they  may  show  an  admirable  adaptation  in  the  toes  of  the  liz- 
ard to  the  use  the  lizard  makes  of  them  ;  but  when  we  talk  of  the  divine 
wisdom  in  this  thing  there  is  a  higher  question — Why  was  the  lizard  made 
at  all,  and  the  rattlesnake  with  his  fangs,  and  the  horrid  monsters  whose 
loug-lifeless  remains  the  geologists  find  in  the  rocks, — those  horrid  mon- 
sters whose  teeth  were  so  admirably  adapted  to  devour  other  contempo- 
rary monsters  in  the  pre-Adamic  ages.  The  zoologist  examines  those  an- 
cient teeth,  he  exhibits  them  to  his  staring  audience,  he  points  out  how 
well  adapted  they  were  to  their  devouring  purposes,  he  expatiates  on  the 
wisdom  and  omniscience  of  God  as  therein  displaj'ed,  and  the  religious 
world  is  delighted  to  find  that  men  who  know  so  much  can  talk  so  piously. 
It  begins  to  be  thought  that  those  who  are  so  orthodox  on  the  genus  La- 
certa,  can  not  be  so  far  out  of  the  way  in  their  doctrine  of  the  genus  Hotno 
and  the  human  pluralities.  But  there  are  some  who  are  too  iireverent,  or 
it  may  be,  have  too  little  faith,  for  the  ready  reception  of  this  naturalizing 
piety.    As  they  listen  to  the  account  of  these  pre-Adamic   monsters,  na. 


236        SKILL   AS   DISTINGUISHED    FROM   WISDOM. 

for  the  higher  there  would  seem  to  be  other  and  more 
direct  modes  of  conveying  the  lesson  of  the  divine  pre- 
sence and  the  divine  omniscience, —  such  as  we  find  in 
the  First  of  Genesis,  the  Tiventieth  of  Exodus,  and  the 
One  Hundred  and  Thirty-ninth  Psalm.  Of  course,  we 
are  here  only  expressing  our  own  difficulties,  and  not 

ture's  curious  adaptations  are  all  regarded  as  of  inferior  moment,  if  not  ut- 
terly forgotten,  in  view  of  another  suggested  query  that  overwhelms  the 
thinking  soul.  The  thought  will  come  up  that  every  time  those  horrid 
jaws  have  closed,  it  has  been  on  some  mortal  agony,  some  writhing,  quiv- 
ering flesh,  some  palpitating  system  of  sensation  as  wondcrfhlly  harmon- 
ized, and  as  well  adapted  as  the  cruel  teeth  themselves  to  show  the  marvel- 
lous skill  exhibited  in  nature's  plans.  Explanations  of  this  are  now  and 
then  attempted  by  some  of  our  physico-moralists  ;  but  they  seem  less  than 
superficial ;  they  do  not  even  touch  the  surface  of  the  matter ;  if  they  have 
any  effect,  it  is  only  to  suggest  another  difficulty,  ever  greater  than  the  one 
they  attempt  to  solve.  Skill, \nAeeA\  There  is  no  doubt  of  the  .s/c///.  That 
may  be  detected  in  abundance.  But  "where  shall  wisdom  be  found  ?  The 
Sea  saith  it  is  not  in  me ;  the  Deep  saith  it  is  not  in  me  ;  Sheol  and  Abad- 
don, the  Grave  and  Dissolution,  say  ■wq  have  "heard  a  rumor  thereof  with 
our  ears  :  It  is  not  found  in  the  land  of  the  living."  And  yet  one  who  thus 
queries  may  believe  in  the  Divine  Wisdom  and  Omniscience  as  strongly 
as  the  scientific  lecturer — perhaps  with  a  stronger  faith  :  for  he  goes  by 
faith  here  and  not  by  sight,  whether  it  be  ordinary  or  scientific  vision.  He 
can  not  wait  until  his  natural  knowledge  connects  together  all  those  innu- 
merable links  which  would  make  such  belief  an  unanswerable  inductive 
conclusion.  God  has  given  him  a  better  guide  in  certain  feelings  and  ideas 
of  the  soul,  and  when  they  have  become  dim  or  dead,  grace,  it  may  be,  has 
renewed  them,  and  so  he  believes,  most  rationnU>/  believes,  where  he  can 
not  see.  He  believes  in  the  wisdom,  where  he  can  not  see  the  wisdom. 
God  is  certainly  wise,  though  nature  were  oven  still  more  full  of  enigmas. 
God  is  certainly  good,  he  would  say,  though  his  lot  were  cast  in  some  re- 
gion of  the  jdiysical  universe  where  the  natural  adnptations  for  producing 
pain  far  outnumbered  all  that  are  found  in  our  own  Valley  of  liaca.  We 
have  no  wish  to  underrate  what  is  really  curious  and  interesting  in  science 
per  se,  and  such  would  we  regard  the  lecturer's  facts  in  relation  to  the  liz- 
ard. We  would  not  wish  uselessly  to  disturb  any  pious  sentiment,  though 
fed  merely  by  natural  contemplations.  But  it  does  seem  to  us,  that  that 
higher  ground  of  faith  which  every  truly  religious  mii-id  must  admit  to  be 
necessary,  is  obscured,  to  say  the  least,  by  the  modern  tendency  to  rest  in 
mere  physical  adaptation,  and  to  applaud  that  physical  religionism  whose 
main  worship  is  ever  the  laudation  and  glorification  of  science. 


WISDOM    WHERE   WE    CAN   NOT   SEE.  337 

making  our  own  exceedingly  limited  vision  the  measure 
of  the  divine  intelligence.  There  may  be,  there  must  be 
vast  wisdom  where  we  can  not  see  ;  God  has  given  man 
a  priori  intelligence  enough  to  see  that,  and  this  may, 
perhaps,  be  one  great  difference  between  him  and  the 
lower  animals,  with  whom  sense  and  experience  are  the 
only  measure  of  things  and  thought.  The  mode  of  cre- 
ation is  full  of  difficulties,  philosophical  as  well  as  philo- 
logical. This  is  our  position  here.  But  science,  the 
science  we  are  characterizing,  passes  glibly  over  them, 
or  goes  silently  around  them.  At  all  events,  it  does  not 
think  of  encountering  them.  This  may  be  owing  to 
modesty  in  "the  Student  of  Nature,"  or  it  may  be  that 
he  is  so  dazzled  by  his  own  light,  that  he  does  not  see 
the  difficulties  that  lie  below  his  facts,  and  which  trouble 
other  minds  of  a  different  temperament,  and  a  lower  or- 
der of  thinking. 

We  must,  however,  make  the  exceptional  remark,  in 
passing,  that  Professor  Dana  seems  to  have  had  some 
trouble  in  his  mind  about  the  birds.  He  looks  into  the 
Bible  here,  and  finds  that  our  old  translation  represents 
them  as  the  product  of  the  waters.  This  is  rather  start- 
ling, although,  in  itself,  not  a  particle  'more  mysterious 
than  the  other  language,  and  so  he  resorts  to  Professor 
Bush  to  show  that  the  Hebrew  may  be  rendered  "  Let 
the  birds  ^j%," — thus  making  the  language  indefinite, 
and  getting  rid  of  the  seemingly  troublesome  connection 
with  the  waters.  We  have  certainly  very  high  respect 
for  Professor  Bush,  both  as  a  man  and  as  a  scholar,  but 
this  will  not  do.  If  he  will  examine  the  passage  more 
carefully,  he  must  see  that  this  rendering,  which  seems, 
at  first  view,  rather  plausible,  can  not  stand  the  test. 


238  THE   BIRDS   FROM   THE   WATERS. 

The  Hebrew  construction  will  not  admit  it.  It  is  the 
descriptive  future  with  omission  of  the  relative,  (tisiy  tiis"!) 
an  idiom  well  marked  in  the  sacred  language,  especi- 
ally as  forming  a  peculiarity  of  its  earhest  state,  and 
therefore,  as  we  might  expect,  occurring  so  often  in  the 
Arabic.  In  fact,  we  have  precisely  the  same  expres- 
sion, and  in  the  same  order,  in  the  Koran,  Surat  vi,  v. 
38,  "T^ui  n-'Nta,  Urd  that  flies.  It  is  equivalent  to  a  de- 
scriptive participle  with  the  article  as  it  occurs  in  Greek, 
and  is  used  by  the  Septuagint  as  a  translation  of  this 
very  passage,  *£Tsiva  ■rsTo'iJ-sva,  birds  that  fly ^ — or  to  the 
verb  with  the  relative,  aves  quce  volant^  or  volajites  — 
the  flying  birds.  This  is  the  rendering  of  all  the  old 
versions,  together  with  the  Targum  of  Onkelos,  hnsn  nsi» 
"  bird  that  flies.'''  The  other,  or  the  imperative  use  of 
the  future,  '■'•  Let  the  birds  fly,''  requires  a  different  order 
of  the  words,  and  this  order,  when  that  sense  is  demanded, 
is  not  departed  from.  The  New  Baptist  Version  gives 
the  same  rendering  as  Professor  Bush,  and  to  avoid,  per- 
haps, the  same  apparent  difficulty.  We  have  all  respect, 
too,  for  some  of  the  scholars  engaged  in  that  work  ;  but 
our  old  translation  here  is  right.  The  volatile  as  well  as 
the  reptile,  to  use  the  words  of  the  Vulgate,  had  a  ma- 
rine origin.  Moses  does  teach  this,  whether  it  be  natur- 
alism or  not.  The  expression  would  seem  to  intimate, 
that  in  some  way,  directly  or  mediately,  nearly  or  re- 
motely, through  the  types,  or  through  the  life,  or  through 
the  matter,  the  divine  creative  power  did  bring  them  from 
the  waters.  Now  we  have  heard  that  science  finds  fish 
types  in  the  birds, —  thereby  testifying  on  the  side  of 
Moses.  If  so,  it  is  all  the  better  for  the  credit  of  science. 
But  be  that  as  it  may,  such  we  believe  to  be  the  only 


THE   SCIENTIFIC   SIX   DAYS.  239 

fair  interpretation  of  the  strange  Mosaic  language,  wliat- 
ever  difficulties  it  maj  be  supposed  to  bring,  either  to  the 
religious  or  the  scientific  side  of  these  questions. 

The  Reviewer's  "  boat"  has  evidently  been  driven  bj 
two  forces  producing  a  sort  of  compound  motion.  There 
must  be  some  appearance  of  accommodation  to  the  Scrip- 
tures, and  this  occasionally  warps  its  course  ;  but  the 
mind  is  ever  and  mainly  upon  something  else.  The  Har- 
mony of  Science  and  the  Bible !  The  reconciliation  of 
Faith  and  Geology  !  In  the  book  reviewed,  there  is  no 
such  unmeaning,  and  we  may  say  untruthful  aim  pro- 
posed. It  is  in  fact  ever  kept  out.  The  Scriptures  are 
to  be  interpreted,  not  reconciled.  Science  and  the  Bible 
have  nothing  in  common.  Even  in  respect  to  prime  phy- 
sical facts  of  origin  and  destiny,  they  occupy  two  distinct 
departments,  one  of  which  is  far  below  the  other.  But 
m  the  Review  there  must,  in  some  way,  be  a  harmony  to 
correspond  with  the  title,  and  so  in  one  place,  there  is  a 
general  enumeration  of  six  periods.  We  have,  1st,  Light, 
2d,  a  mysterious  blank,  3d,  Division  of  Land  and  Water 
with  commencing  vegetation,  4th,  Celestial  Bodies  or 
manifestations,  5th,  The  Long  Marine  Period,  6th,  all 
that  follows,  though  without  any  division  Scriptural  or 
scientific.  This  long  marine  period  being  a  favorite  no- 
tion, and  there  being  but  one  period  remaining,  all  of  a 
later  date  must  be  thrown  together,  and  without  any  of 
the  reasons  for  its  being  a  day  by  itself  which  in  the 
Bible  are  so  prominently  presented.  This  scanty  act  of 
homage  once  rendered  to  the  Spiritual  Power,  very  much 
as  the  Italian  Machiavelli  makes  his  appeasing  bow  to 
the  Conclave,  science  breathes  freer  and  passes  on.    It 


240  THE   HEXAMERAL  FEATURE. 

gets  into  the  larger  field,  and  gives  its  larger  view.  The 
boat  is  now  on  its  own  buoyant  element.  It  is  out  of 
the  narroAY  perplexing  currents  of  Moses,  and  here  the 
pilot,  in  his  freedom  and  his  jubilancy,  forgets  himself 
again.  In  the  outline  just  stated,  there  is  some  faint  re- 
semblance. In  what  follows,  it  is  almost  wholly  oblit- 
erated,— we  mean,  in  its  principal  feature,  or  that  by 
which  chiefly  Moses  would  know  its  face.  The  hexam- 
eral  aspect  disappears.  We  are  justified  in  what  we 
have  already  said,  that  if  Moses  were  unthought  of  by 
the  reader,  he  would  as  easily  find  in  this  scheme  sixty, 
or  even  six  hundred  days,  as  well  as  six.  There  is  no 
supernatural  Word  dividing  the  one  from  the  other, — 
nay,  more,  there  are  no  divisions,  which,  for  all  that  any 
inductive  science  can  legitimately  deny,  nature  could  not 
have  run  over  as  easily  as  she  runs  through  any  of  the 
intercluded  sections.  In  the  Mosaic  account  these  divi- 
sions are  distinctly  made  by  the  Word  of  the  Lord,  each 
time,*  and  we  want  no  other  proof.  The  geological  account 
with  which  we  are  now  dealing  does  not  exhibit  them  in 
any  distinct  manner,  and  if  it  did  so,  could  not,  as  we 
have  before  proved,  ever  show,  by  any  scientific  reasons, 
that  the  same  nature  could  not  have  developed  them  all, 
or,  which  is  the  same  thing,  that  they  were  not  all  con- 
tained in  the  first  nature  which  God  made  and  endowed 
with  laws  for  that  purpose.  Science  could  never  satisfy 
us  that  the  Author  of  nature  might  not  have  given,  and 
did  not,  in  fact,  give  to  her,  the  wider  as  well  as  the  nar- 

'^"And  (Jod  said,"  etc.  Let  the  render  observe  how  regularly  this  oc- 
curs each  time.  Then  let  him  compare  it  with  the  "  ^oinc;s  forth  of  old" 
of  the  Logos,  Mich,  vi,  "The  ouf goings"  of  "  Wisitom,"  Prov.  viii,  aud  the 
Word,  Heb.  xi,  3,  "  by  which  the  worlds,  or  ages,  were  framed." 


WHAT   NEED    OF    SUCCESSIVE   NATURES.  241 

roAver  limit.  And  this  is  the  point  to  which  we  are  espe- 
cially desirous  to  call  the  reader's  attention.  It  is  all 
important  in  determining  what  science  may  legitimately 
claim,  and  for  showing,  what  is  far  more  vital  to  our  true 
faith,  how  entirely  we  must  be  dependent  on  a  revelation 
for  any  sure  knowledge  of  the  metes  and  boundaries  in 
this  matter.  Now  the  Bible  has  given  us  just  this  know- 
ledge. When  Moses  tells  us  the  "Word  went  forth,  or 
uses  that  transcending  formula  "  And  God  said,"  we 
know  that  it  was  to  do  some  work  which  nature  — 
whether  a  new  nature  then  made,  or  any  older  or  pre- 
vious nature  —  could  not  have  done,  and  was  not  made 
to  do,  without  a  new  divine  energy.  We  know  it  from  the 
divine  teaching ;  we  certainly  know  it  in  no  other  way.* 

■*  It  is,  in  general,  more  wise,  as  well  as  more  reverent,  to  seek  for  tlie 
meaning  of  revelation,  than  to  ask  why  God  has  given  it  to  us  as  he  has. 
And  yet  the  latter  question  may  be  sometimes  involved  in  the  former,  anA^ 
to  some  extent,  inseparable  from  it.  It  might  have  been  revealed  to  us 
simply  that  God  made  the  world,  or  that  he  made  all  things,  leaving  the 
times,  the  manner,  the  order,  the  succession,  and  even  the  fact  whether 
there  had  been  a  succession,  an  entire  blank.  Some  think  that  this  is,  in 
fact,  all  that  is  meant ;  everything  else  being  a  mere  accommodation  tc 
human  notions,  or  a  mythical  adormnent.  ^Ve  can  not,  however,  thus  re- 
gard it.  There  is,  at  least,  an  outline.  ^Ve  think  we  can  see  a  reason, 
why  it  was  not  more,  and  yet  enough  given  to  show  us  a  succession,  or  a 
series  of  consecutive  steps  or  natures  in  the  divine  working.  It  may  have 
been  to  teach  us  that  with  Him  there  is  a  reserve  fountain  of  power  im- 
mensely greater  than  he  has  ever  yet  manifested.  Had  there  been  given. 
to  nature,  in  the  Jirst  place,  all  the  potentiality  necessary  to  bring  out  the 
universe  in  time  as  it  was  intended  to  be,  and  had  such,  accordingly,  beeru 
the  revelation  made  to  us,  it  would  have  been  no  less  divine,  but  far  less 
impressive.  It  would  have  removed  the  supernatural  so  far  away,  that 
the  idea  would  have  been  dim,  if  not  wholly  lost.  Had  the  supernatural,, 
on  the  other  hand,  been  more  frequent,  the  depravity  of  fallen  beings  would 
have  run  into  a  similar,  or  we  might  saj',  perhaps,  the  same  error,  by  con- 
founding it  with  ordinary  nature.  There  would  be  resemblances  in  such 
events,  as  well  as  iu  the  strictly  natural.  Hence,  science  would  begin  to. 
classify,  talk  about  laws,  and  thus  attempt  to  bring  them  under  her  jurisv 
diction. 


242  EXTRAORDINARY    LEAP. 

It  could  be  shown,  that  there  are  direct  inconsisten- 
cies in  this  scheme.  We  have  assurances  from  the  high- 
est scientific  authority  that  its  geological  science  is  really 
no  better  than  its  philosophy  ;  but  Ave  prefer  to  keep  here 
on  the  higher  and  wider  ground.  In  his  attempt  to  be 
cosmological  in  the  widest  sense,  the  writer  involves 
himself  in  difficulties  surpassing  all  explanation  whether 
of  geology  or  of  exegesis.  From  the  wide  universe  in  its 
earliest  dawn  of  physical  being,  down  to  our  little  earth, 
there  is  a  forced  and  sudden  leap  which  is  out  of  all  sci- 
entific as  well  as  Scriptural  harmony.  And  so  in  respect 
to  time  ;  we  come  from  the  birth  of  the  light  in  its  essence, 
from  the  primordial  nebulous  matter  that  first  issued  forth 
from  the  invisible  nonexistence,  right  down  to  the  moss- 
breeding,  grass-growing  days,  which,  in  comparison  with 
the  first,  would  be  like  the  ratio  of  Mr.  Lord's  clock 
measured  times  to  the  common  geological  epochs.  The 
Reviewer  finds  fault  with  the  interpretation  given  of  the 
word  beginning.  He  would  be  more  orthodox  here, 
which  it  was  perfectly  easy  for  him  to  be,  since  science, 
when  it  assumes  this  attitude,  may  just  as  well  take  at 
once  the  widest  as  any  more  limited  ground.  One  costs 
no  more  than  the  other  ;  and,  Scripture  being  ignored, 
it  is  as  easy  to  find  the  six  days  in  the  earliest  as  in  the 
later  chronology.  There  is,  however,  some  attempt  here 
at  exegetical  criticism.  It  is  so  striking  that  we  can  not 
pass  it  over.  The  writer  really  thinks  "  that  Moses  by 
the  Avord  beginning  meant  the  beginning,"  and  seems  to 
fancy  that  such  an  argument  is  truly  a  settlement  of  the 
great  questions  Avhether  it  was  the  beginning  of  time,  the 
beginning  of  God's  first  energizing  in  the  universe,  the 
first  going  forth  of  the  Logos,  without  which  Ave  are 


MATTER   AN   ENERGY,    AN   EVER-DOING.  243 

plainly  taught  in  tlie  Scriptures  there  is  no  creation  of 
any  kind, —  whether  it  was  the  beginning  before  which 
there  was  no  beginning,  or  the  beginning  of  a  special 
w'ork  in  time  and  space  more  directly  connected  with  our 
own  mundane  habitation, —  a  beginning  commencing 
with  some  existing  state  of  the  thing  which  is  the  subject 
of  such  Avorking,  and  with  f^  special  act  (such  as  the 
brooding  of  the  spirit  upon  the  waters,)  that  was  the 
beginning  of  a  subsequent  and  well  ordered  process.  All 
these  questions  he  would  regard  as  answered,  or,  at  least 
as  silenced  by  the  profound  exegetical  opinion  that  "  Mo- 
ses by  the  word  beginning  really  meant  the  beginning"  ! 
This  closes  the  argument,  and  renders  any  other  view  or 
remark  quite  superfluous. 

But  let  us  look  at  this  soaring  view,  and  see  where  it 
really  carries  us.  The  writer  would  make  it  the  begin- 
ning of  the  first  material,  yea,  of  the  first  dynamical  ex- 
istence of  any  kind.  We  say  the  first  dynamical ;  for 
although  there  is  an  attempt,  very  unscientific  and  much 
after  the  manner  of  the  Italian  priests,  to  excite  the  the- 
ological hatred  against  the  author  by  the  common  bug- 
bear of  the  eternity  of  matter,  yet  all  science  may  be 
defied  to  show  what  matter  is,  if  it  is  not  resolvable  ulti- 
mately into  the  idea  of  pure  force  regarded  as  something 
subsistent,  and  separate  from  a  spiritual  energy  in  which 
it  had  its  origin.  Life,  v;e  have  before  said  (p.  201) 
was  inconceivable  except  as  an  energ}'',  a  doing  some- 
thing, whether  by  way  of  outvrard  effect  (out-doing')  in 
space,  or  of  resistance,  that  is,  maintaining  itself  against 
other  forces, —  as  we  might  there  have  qualified  and 
rendered  unexceptionable  our  remark.  All  latent  for- 
ces, as  they  are  called,  may  in  this  way  be  regarded  as 


244        DIFFEREXCE   BETWEEN    REST   AND    INERTIA. 

continually  acting  energies, —  an  inert  'power  being  a 
contradiction  both  in  terms  and  idea.  The  same  may 
be  affirmed,  though  in  a  lower  sense  of  matter  itself. 
Life  is  organizing  power,  acting  or  resisting  according  to 
an  idea.  But  matter,  in  the  lowest  conception  we  can 
form  of  it,  is  still  energy.  Rc^t  is  not  inertia.  The 
latter  is  strictly  a  mere  negative  idea  that  can  only 
be  predicated  of  nothingness.  It  can  have  no  place  in 
a  real  universe.  The  former,  as  is  implied  in  its 
■etymology  (re-sto,  resisto,')  is  an  equilibrium  of  powers, 
a  quiescent  balance  ef  forces,  but  none  the  less  a  contin- 
ual energy,  an  ever  doing,  as  the  very  ground  and  con- 
dition of  its  existence.  If  so,  then  the  first  material  cre- 
ation must  have  been  the  first  dynamical  creation,  or  the 
beginning  of  any  energizing  in  space  and  time  below  the 
purely  spiritual  or  divine. 

It  is  his  determination  to  bring  in  his  nebular  theory 
•that  leads  the  writer  to  this.  The  light  mentioned  by 
Moses  he  would  have  to  be  the  first  light, —  not  simply 
the  first  light  upon  our  earth,  and  which  the  plain  inter- 
pretation of  Genesis  makes  to  be  posterior  to  the  waters, 
but  the  first  light  that  ever  shone  in  the  universe,  the 
first  light  ever  called  into  being,  the  first  light  in  its  very 
essence  as  it  came  forth  from  the  invisible,  the  first  out- 
beaming  of  the  Shekinah,  the  very  birth  of  that  unap- 
proachable entity  that  forms  the  robe*  of  the  King  Im- 

"  \Vc  hesitate  to  regard  svicli  expressions  in  the  Seripfure  as  mere 
figures  of  speech.  It  would  certainly  seem  to  be  taught  that  Deity  has, 
somehow,  and  soniewhere,  a  physical  splendor  which  the  human  eye  could 
not  behold  and  live.  Moses  could  only  look  upon  its  l^initiS,  its  darker 
side,  or  rear  shadow.  It  would  seem  to  be  the  same  that  Peter  calls 
^Sya'ko'n'^-ifrii  So^a,  "Ihc  Excellent  Glory  "  or  the  mngnificcKt  glory, 
5  Pet.  i,  17,  from  wliich,  or  rather  under  which  (iro  T>;.c}  came  forth  tlio 


FIRST   LIGHT    OP   PHYSICAL   BEING.  245 

mortal.  This  birth  of  the  light,  then,  if  it  is  referred  to 
by  Moses,  was  in  the  work  of  the  first  day.  We  might 
say,  earth's  first  day,  if  we  followed  Moses  at  all,  for  he 
makes  his  first  mention  of  it  in  the  verse  wherein  he  be- 
gins to  speak  of  the  creation  of  the  earth  as  being  before 
that  of  the  heavens,  and  this  mention  is  immediately  after 
what  is  antithetically  said  of  the  darkness  on  the  face  of 
the  terrestrial  deep.'  The  Spirit  broods  upon  the  Waters ; 
then  comes  forth  the  Word,  and  the  luminous  manifesta- 
tion is  made.  But  in  the  scientific  theory,  which,  al- 
though, professing  to  be  in  harmony  with  Moses,  is  too 
ambitious  to  take  him  for  a  guide,  we  are  yet  far  oflffrom 
the  earth ;  we  have  not  yet  come  near  its  lower  orb ;  we 
are  immensely  distant  from  it  in  time  and  space  ;  we  are 
not  merely  in  the  heavens,  the  astronomical  heavens  of 
nebular  and  stellar  systems,  but  in  the  very  remotest 
time  and  space  bounds  of  the  all  but  infinite  universe. 

The  scheme  re(i[uires  that  the  light  mentioned  by  Mo- 
ses should  be  the  first  light  of  physical  being,  the  first 
born  of  the  cosmical  creation,  and  this  would  carry  us  to 
a  time  before  any  division  of  the  universal  fluid,  before 
the  active  commencement  of  gravitation,  or  of  any  draiv- 
ing  to  separate  centres  of  motion  as  the  initial  embryotic 

voice  that  proclaimed  the  Eterual  Son.  The  truth  that  God  is  a  Spirit  is 
not  at  all  at  war  with  the  thought  that  he  has  made  for  himself  such  a  pe- 
I'uliar  reside.ice  ia  an  outward  glory.  If,  however,  we  regard  it  as  a  mate- 
rial splendor  in  any  sense,  it  must  be  older  than  that  light  that  first  "  shone 
out  of  the  darkness"  (Ix  (fxoTOvg,  2  Cor.  iv,  6,)  which  i-ested  on  the  early 
Tellurian  waters.  For  other  mention  of  this  Shekinal  glory,  of  which  the 
.Jewish  Shekiuah  was  the  earthly  representative,  the  reader  is  referred  to 
such  passages  as  Isa.  vi,  1,  John  xii,41,  Acts  vii,  55,  Luke  ii,  9,  Psalm  civ,  1, 
1  Tim.  vi,  16,  1  Kings  viii,  11,  Ezekiel  i,  26,  27,  28.  Certain  very  strange 
notions  of  the  Jewish  doctors  respecting  it,  may  be  found  inBuxtorf'sChal- 
daic  Lexicon,  on  the  word  triiS©. 

21* 


246  MOTION   OF  LIGHT. 

conception  of  systems  and  -n-orlds.  We  take  this  nebu- 
lar theory  as  we  find  it  presented  by  scientific  men ;  but 
although  greatly  admiring  it,  in  some  of  its  sublime  out- 
lines, we  can  not  be  responsible  for  the  difficulties  it 
throws  in  the  way  of  that  scientific  exegesis  of  the  Mo- 
saic creation  which  would  mate  it  cosmical  in  the  widest 
and  oldest  extent  of  the  term.  The  chief  difficulty  arises 
from  what  is  said,  in  the  books,  of  the  motion  of  light. 
If  the  consideration  of  it  draws  us  into  a  seeming  digres- 
sion from  our  main  course  of  argument,  we  ask  the  read- 
er's kind  indulgence.  Science  tells  us,  and  we  are  in- 
clined to  believe  her,  that  there  are  worlds  now  visible 
through  the  most  powerful  telescopes,  yet  so  inconceiva- 
bly distant,  that  to  have  reached  our  earth  within  any 
historical  period  their  light  must  have  been  traveling 
toward  us  for  millions  of  years  before  man  appeared. 
The  ray  that  now  terminates  its  long  journey  on  the 
retina  of  a  human  eye,  commenced  that  long  journey 
when  our  infant  earth  had  not  yet  been  "  robed  in  its 
garment  of  clouds,"  or  "  wrapped  in  its  swaddling  band 
of  thick  darkness,"*  yea,  had  not  even  been  born,  or 
come  forth  from  the  nebulous  womb ;  unless  we  regard 
it  —  which,  scientifically,  we  have  no  right  to  do  —  as 
among  the  oldest  cosmical  existences  that  came  out  in 
•distinct  form  and  position.  But  we  are  not  confined  to 
ihe  visible,  even  though  it  be  the  most  remotely  visible 
coming  to  us  through  the  most  far-seeing,  or  tele-scoino 
powers  that  have  ever  been  brought  to  the  aid  of  the  hu- 
man optics.  The  same  scientific  analogy  presses  us  on 
to  multiples  even  of  such  an  inconceivable  space  and 
iime,  and  to  multiples  of  multiples  so  vast  that  all  of  the 

*  Job  sxxviii,  9. 


INCONCEIVABLE  EXTENT  OF  THE  UNIVERSE.   247 

past  and  future  that  our  mightiest  coroputations  can  ex- 
press are  insufficient  for  the  journey.  Is  any  science  so 
narrow,  not  to  say  trifling,  as  to  limit  the  universe  to  the 
range  of  Lord  Rosse's  telescope,  or  to  fancy  that  all  be- 
yond this  arbitral^  limit  is  a  dreary  void  —  a  boundless 
space  that  a  boundless  time  has  never  yet  seen  occupied, 
in  any  part,  with  creations  ?  Let  us  test  the  reasonable- 
ness of  this  by  some  of  its  own  numerical  estimates.  In- 
stead of  the  clumsy  and  utterly  inaderpiate  methods 
sometimes  employed  to  denote  immense  distances,  let  us 
take  a  pure  mathematical  expression  whose  inconceivable 
power  is  in  direct  and  striking  contrast  with  its  extreme 
simplicity.  Take  at  once,  as  its  basis,  the  remotest  celes- 
tial object  from  which  there  ever  fell  a  ray  upon  the 
spectrum  of  our  mightiest  telescope.  Call  its  mile  dis- 
tance X.  Then  take  that  transcendental  power  x"^,  and 
if  this  be  not  enough,  carry  it  up  the  ascending  scale  x"^, 
until  the  degrees  of  involution  themselves  amount  to  x. 
We  are  now  where  the  mightiest  distance  to  which  the 
mightiest  lens  ever  penetrated  becomes  a  vanishing  infin- 
itesimal ;  and  yet  we  have  no  right  to  stop,  no  analogy 
that  does  not  carry  us  still  onward,  no  "  sufficient  reasori'^ 
to  suppose  that  we  have  done  anything  more  than  make 
a  beginning  of  a  beginning  in  the  estimate  of  God's  crea- 
tion. Do  we  shrink  from  calling  it  infinite  ?  Certain  a 
priori  theological  ideas  do,  indeed,  forbid  the  supposition ; 
but  science  has  no  resting  place.  The  same  induction 
that  compels  her  to  take  the  steps  already  taken,  presses 
her  onward  forever  and  forever  more.  A  necessary 
theology  teaches  that  the  universe  must  be  finite ;  and 
yet  it  may  be  so,  and  still  extend,  most  probably  does 
extend,  beyond  any  bounds  that  even  such  a  formula 


248   EACH   WORLD   WITH  A  LONG   PROJECTING   RAY. 

could  reach.  We  may  be  near  the  centre  ;  we  may  be 
near  the  outer  verge,  and  yet  this  immeasurable  near- 
ness such,  that  even  between  us  and  that  outer  verge 
there  may  be  a  wilderness,  not  merely  of  solar  and  stellar 
but  of  cosmical  systems, —  a  wilderness  of  worlds  comr 
pared  with  which  the  whole  cosmical  region  through 
which  light  has  ever  travelled  to  us  may  be  like  a  single 
leaf  in  the  forests  of  the  Oronoco. 

Now  the  first  light  that  ever  shone  on,  or  out  of,  these 
distant  worlds,  or  in  these  inconceivably  remote  times 
and  spaces,  may  have  been,  must  have  been,  junior  to 
the  birth  itself  of  that  luminous  essence,  than  which  we 
can  conceive  of  nothing  older  in  time  and  creation.  But 
fixing  the  mind  upon  this  later  cosmical  radiating  light, 
we  may  muse  upon  the  question,  although  we  can  not 
venture  to  ask  it  —  how  long  has  even  this  light,  this  first 
and  most  distant  radiation,  been  travelling  down  to  us  ? 
How  long  before  it  will  ever  reach  us,  or  where,  perhaps, 
will  be  our  world,  when  it  arrives  ?  We  are  lost.  The 
geological  epochs  disappear  like  the  fast  falling  autumnal 
leaves,  or  the  rapid  rain-drops  as  they  vanish  in  the  mea- 
sureless waters  of  the  ocean.  All  proportions  fail  us  ; 
all  numerical  ratios  become  incommensurable.  Mr. 
Lord  has  a  very  easy  way  of  getting  along  with  this. 
If  he  takes  the  common  scientific  idea  of  the  motion  of 
light,  which  we  think  he  does, —  for  he,  too,  would  be 
scientific  —  then  he  has  only  to  form  the  very  easy  hypo- 
thesis, that  all  these  remote  worlds,  being  all  created 
'luring  the  solar  week  of  our  earth,  were  each  of  them 
made  with  an  immense  projecting  horn  (rp.  ^^'i^s  xs^au- 
vo'f,)  or  ray  of  light,  issuing  from  them,  and  just  so  long 
or  carried  so  sufficiently  near  to  us  on  their  first  crea- 


FAITH   UNSHAKEN   BY   SIZE   OF   THE   UNIVNRSE.    249 

tion,  that  their  continued  light  would  just  reach  our  earth 
on  the  evening  of  the  fourth  day.  Professor  Dana  would 
doubtless  regard  that  as  all  folly,  and  would  think,  per- 
haps, that  he  wholly  avoids  it  in  his  more  scientific  view 
of  the  Mosaic  creation.  He  has  increased  the  scale,  to 
be  sure,  but  losing  sight  of  the  principle  which  should 
govern  in  the  management  of  so  unvaeldy  an  instrument, 
he  has  only  increased  the  difficulties  in  the  like  ratio. 
Carry  it  fairly  out,  where  it  will  fairly  go,  and  the  neces- 
sary elongation  it  demands  for  the  Mosaic  First  day,  and 
especially  the  disproportion  it  must  bear  to  all  the  rest, 
involve  us  in  an  absurdity  the  more  disgraceful  as  the 
scheme  from  which  it  comes  is  the  more  pretentious. 

But  is  not  revelation,  too,  and  all  religion,  overwhelmed 
by  such  a  view  ?  Not  at  all.  Faith  stands  unmoved  and 
undisc^uieted,  if  we  ^^•ill  only  keep  in  mind  the  estimating 
principle  that  has  before  been  adverted  to.  The  great- 
ness which  science  computes  is  quantitative  ;  hence,  too, 
comparative,  and  self-overwhelming.  However  far  it  may 
stretch  itself,  it  is  driven  in  to  nothingness  by  conceiving 
still  greater  bounds  to  the  physical  universe.*  On  the 
other  hand.  Faith  and  Revelation  connect   themselves 

*  Tlie  samo  remark  is  applicable  to  that  kiudrcil  sj-stom  of  tlieologj-  tliat 
irrounds  itself  on  idililia:,  and  "  greatest  happiness,"  and  makes  its  measure 
of  sill  dependent  on  the  amount  of  niischiof  or  uuliappiness  produced  by  it, 
or  by  its  example  of  impunity,  and  this,  of  course,  ou  some  supposed  extent 
of  the  universe, — sia  rising  in  moral  enormity  (if  we  may  use  the  word 
moral  in  such  a  connection)  as  the  universe  is  supposed  to  expand,  and 
sinking  as  it  withdraws  itself  into  narrower  spaces.  Hence  it  must  be  aa 
wholly  quantitative  as  the  inductive  science  to  which  it  is  allied.  It  can 
have  no  real  qualifi/,  or  absolute  essence,  independent  of  outward  com  • 
putatioa.  For  happiness  (wcU-feetingJ  and  utilities  are  ever  terms  of 
amount  in  some  order  or  degree,  and  whatever  is  grounded  upon  them 
mast  partake  of  the  same  changing  character.  But  the  idea  of  the  Good 
must  be  soiiicthiivg  constant,  ever  the  same,  be  the  universe  small  or  great. 


250   THE  UNIVERSAL  TEHOM  OR  NEBULAR  DEEP. 

with  the  supernatural,  where  the  "  least  in  the  kingdom''^ 
is  greater  than  all  physical  existence.  In  a  fixed  rela- 
tion to  a  Divine  Centre,  they  present  a  constant  value  for 
each  single  world,  and  each  individual  rationality.  It 
is  the  same  as  though  that  world  were  the  only  world, 
and  that  individual  rationality  the  only  rationality,  ex- 
cept the  divine,  in  the  universe  both  of  space  and  time. 
Hence  no  comparison,  and  no  variation  of  quantity,  can 
derange  it.  As  far,  at  least,  as  any  such  scientific  dif- 
ficulty is  concerned,  it  is  a  faith  that  might  unshrinkingly 
accept  even  an  infinity  of  natural  worlds,  without  dravr- 
ing  its  anchors,  or  parting  its  cables  from  their  strong 
hold  in  God's  supernatural  revelation  of  a  distinct  super- 
natural world,  or  state  of  being. 

Now,  to  connect  this  with  our  main  argument,  the  sci- 
entific or  nebular  scheme  of  the  Mosaic  creation  requires 
that  the  light  mentioned  Genesis  i,  3,  should  be  the  first 
light  of  universal  being,  and  so,  of  course,  the  previously 
mentioned  waters  must  be  sublimated  into  the  all-pervad- 
ing nebular  _/?i«'(^.  Instead  of  being,  in  any  sense,  a  cha- 
otic earth,  a  teliom  (tairrn)  of  waters,  it  is  the  nebular 
tehom,  or  nebular  deep  of  the  universe,  out  of  which  came 
all  Avorlds  and  all  systems  as  well  as  our  own.  This, 
then,  was  the  work  of  the  first  day ;  but  how  are  we  to 
travel  from  it  to  our  own  "  little  earth,"  as  it  is  called, 
when  such  a  name  is  thought  to  suit  other  parts  of  the 
theory  ?  How  are  we  to  get  safely  down  from  such  dizzy 
heights  of  space,  and  such  remotenesses  of  time,  into  this 
"  inferior  satellite"  which  God  has  seen  fit  to  make  our 
secluded  habitation,  and  to  which  is  really  confined  all 
our  cosmical  knowledge  that  is  not  the  merest  mathemat- 
ical estimate  of  masses,  distances,  or  comparative  visual 


THE  NEBULAR  THEORY.  251 

angles  in  space.  Such  a  rash  leap  might  be  expected 
from  a  mere  blundering  man  of  exegesis,  but  cautious 
and  "  exact  science,"  as  she  calls  herself,  should  have 
furnished  a  more  secure  ladder  for  so  perilous  an  achieve- 
ment. She  should  have  made  a  bridge  for  us  over  thi^ 
tremendous  chasm.  She  should  have  shown  more  clearly 
in  which  one  of  the  six  days,  whether  in  the  first  or  se- 
cond, we  cross  from  the  nebular  deep  of  the  kosmos  to 
the  dry  land,  or  terra  firma,  of  our  own  httle  islet  of  the 
earth. 

Now,  we  have  nothing  to  say  against  the  nebular  the- 
ory. Aside  from  any  scientific  knowledge  on  our  own 
part,  be  it  less  or  more,  we  could  not  help  respecting 
what  had  been  advocated  by  a  Henry,  a  Peirce,  and  an 
Alexander  among  ourselves,  to  say  nothing  of  distin- 
guished names  abroad.  We  must  confess,  too,  a  great 
admiration  of  the  sublime  physical  views  it  presents,  as 
well  as  of  the  genius  displayed  in  their  scientific  exhibi- 
tion. But,  at  the  same  time,  there  may  be  a  very  rea- 
sonable doubt  whether  it  can  be  exegetically  forced  into 
any  accommodation  with  the  Mosaic  creative  history.  If 
this  nebular  theory  is  to  pursue  any  consistent  analogy, 
the  first  works  it  discloses,  or  the  first  energizings  in  mat- 
ter, can  only  be  regarded  as  concerned  with  the  rudimen- 
tary formation  of  immense  systems  of  worlds  instead  of 
the  later  individual  organic  growth  of  single  planets. 
This  is  judged  on  the  same  principle  that  leads  us  to  re- 
gard the  growth  of  a  tree  as  a  much  longer  and  much 
older  w^ork  than  the  special  growth  of  its  fruit.  It  is  a 
fair  comparison  that  would  represent  single  worlds,  and 
even  systems,  as  the  later  quick-germinating  branches, 
or  ultimate  mature  products,  of  the  great  slow  growing 


252  NEBULOUS   FLUID    BREAKING  UP. 

organic  body,  which,  although  only  preparatory  to  the 
fruit,  takes  a  vastly  longer  time  for  being  brought  to  the 
perfection  of  that  fruit-bearing  state.  Now,  the  product 
of  the  nebular  movements  are  conceived  to  be  (whether 
truly  or  falsely  does  not  concern  our  argument,)  immense 
systems  of  worlds  emerging  after  inconceivable  times, 
and  countless  stages,  from  the  at  first  universally  and 
equally  diffused  nebular  ocean.  This  primal  deep  of 
matter,  which  the  ambitious  scientific  interpreter  would 
thus  make  to  be  the  tehom  of  Moses,  is  regarded  as  con- 
densing, cooling,  separating  into  immense  primal  divi- 
sions, and  thus  acquiring  separate  centres  of  cohesive 
gravitation  that  divide,  if  they  do  not  destroy,  the  allegi- 
ance to  the  universal  power.  These  slowly  float  away  ; 
increasing  condensations  again  part  from  each  other  the 
immensely  distant  extremities,  or  separate  them  from 
their  central  parts  ;  new  centres  of  gravity  are  formed, 
and  thus  the  great  mass  is  ever  breaking  up  into  initial 
and  succeeding  portions,  dividing  and  subdividing  them- 
selves in  degrees  and  stages  unknown,  and  only  conceiv- 
able in  the  ratio  their  number  bears  to  the  vastness  of 
the  finite  yet  immeasurable  space  and  time  they  may  be 
supposed  to  occupy.  Next  come  the  smaller  yet  still 
immeasurable  nebular  masses  containing  the  cmbi-yo 
germs  of  unnumbered  systems.  The  imagination, — 
the  rational  imagination,  if  there  be  any  rationality  in 
this  scientific  hypothesis  —  traces  them  as  throwing  off 
their  rings,  parting  and  parting  again  into  concentric 
waves,  surging  and  eddying  in  their  abysmal  vortices, 
■whence  first  emerge  islets  of  nebular  worlds  still  greater, 
perhaps,  than  all  our  sight  or  thought  includes  in  the 
visible  universe.    Kosmoi  next  appear,  and,  at  last,  stel- 


Solar  systems  born.  253 

lar  systems  come  forth  from  this  grand  march  of  progress. 
Planets  are-yet  unborn  ;  the  sun  is  but  an  embryo,  earth 
still  lower  down,  an  embryo  of  an  embryo.  Solar  sys- 
tems are  among  the  things  that  next  take  rank  and  posi- 
tion in  space  —  First,  floating  banks  of  still  condensing 
nebulous  ether,  disturbed  again,  and  parting  into  smaller 
rings  which  somehow  (though  science  has  never  explained 
to  us  the  strange  process)  break  up  into  spheres  and 
throw  off  their  satellites,  until,  at  last,  we  but  begin  to 
approach  the  confines  of  that  time  and  space  where  geo- 
logy finds  the  first  dim  letters  of  her  real  alphabet,  the 
first  rude  cyphers  of  her  vaunted  "  book."  In  fact, 
there  may  have  been  innumerably  more  stages  than 
these.  Adopt  this  scientific  hypothesis,  and  there  is  no 
place  in  an  all  but  infinite  universe  where  we  may  scien- 
tifically stop.  Ascending  above  satellites,  planets,  solar 
systems,  stellar  systems,  cosmical  systems  regarded  as  a 
still  wider  and  more  ancient  elimination,  we  may  have 
many  more  as  well — earlier  in  time,  more  extended  in 
space.  The  divisions  and  subdivisions  may  be  beyond 
any  through  which  the  almost  invisible  speck  that  floats 
in  the  deep  currents  of  the  ocean  may  have  been  parted 
successively  from  its  position  in  the  larger  floating  mass, 
the  earth  bank,  the  boulder,  the  rock,  the  mountain,  up 
to  the  continent,  and  the  globe.  We  may  be  but  the 
detritus  of  the  universe.  A  division  carried,  in  idea, 
even  to  such  an  extent,  would  not,  as  we  have  shown, 
affect  our  true  moral  rank,  or  our  true  moral  value  ;  but 
in  determining,  or  conjecturing,  our  physical  place,  we 
have  as  good  a  right  to  draw  on  the  philosophic  imagma- 
tion  for  the  greater  as  for  any  lesser  series,  and  science 


22 


254  DISPKOPORTION  AMONG   THE   PEKIODS. 

is  defied  to  prove  the  one  any  the  less  rational  than  the 
other. 

All  this,  however,  may  be  true  or  false.  We  care  but 
little  about  it — little,  we  mean,  in  comparison  with  the 
preciousness  of  what  God  has  actually  revealed  to  us 
about  our  own  secluded  satelUte  —  all  the  more  precious, 
too,  because  so  graciously  revealed  by  Him.  But  we 
take  science  as  we  find  her  in  her  exact  or  inexact  de- 
partments ;  we  carry  out  her  hypotheses  as  they  may  be 
legitimately  carried  out ;  and  we  deduce  that  conclusion, 
which,  however  startling,  is  strictly  deducible  from  the 
assumption  of  some  scientific  men  when  they  would  teach 
us  that  the  Mosaic  creation  is  an  expression  for  their 
nebular  system  of  the  universe. 

Thus  the  absurdity  of  such  assumption  is  shown  from 
the  utter  disproportion  and  confusion  it  would  introduce 
between  the  creative  periods  which  Moses  has  defined 
so  distinctly  with  their  regular  evening  and  morning  divi- 
sions. Especially  would  this  be  the  case  in  regard  to 
the  first  and  second.  The  commencement  of  the  nebular 
movement,  and  the  primeval  hght  that  preceded  it,  must 
be  assigned  to  the  first  day.  Its  first  evening,  or  darkness, 
with  which  it  commences,  must,  in  that  case,  have  been 
the  darkness  of  the  old  jprivatioriy  the  antithesis  not  of 
the  luminous  presence  but  of  being  itself,  the  darkness 
that  rested  "upon  the  face"  of  nothing, —  contrary  to 
every  impression  we  get  from  the  Mosaic  account.  Its 
morning  was  not  the  first  morning  of  the  now  visible  earth 
and  illumined  waters,  when  the  previously  created 
"  morning  stars  sang  together,  and  all  the  Sons  of  God 
shouted  for  joy,"  but  the  first  gray  dawn  of  the  first 
nebulous  undulation  that  faiutlv  stirred  the  ocean  of  nou- 


ARE  ALL  PARTS  OF  THE  AVORLD  OP  EQUAL  AGE  ?  255 

entity.  Thus  it  lies  far  away  from  the  other  days.  It 
is  immensely  remote  from  them  in  space  ;  its  locality  is 
not  the  earth,  but  the  broad  field  of  the  universe  ;  its  time 
is  measured  by  no  earthly  change  marking  any  terrestrial 
evening  and  morning,  while  its  least  period  runs  through 
the  course  of  inconceivable  ages  before  earth  was  born. 
Yet  from  such  an  unimaginable  magnitude  of  space  and 
time,  a  magnitude  for  which  mathematical  analysis  finds 
no  expression  that  does  not  start  with  a  measuring  unit 
transcending  all  that  sight  reveals,  there  is  a  sudden 
jump  riglit  down  to  this  earth,  and  all  the  rest  is  occupied 
with  earth's  mosses,  earth's  reptiles,  and  the  dispersion 
of  the  earthly  vapor  that  the  sun  may  shine  upon  them. 
What  is  still  more  absurd,  the  second  day  must  be  wholly 
overlooked,  as  having  no  work  assignable  to  it.  There 
are  difficulties  in  the  Scriptures,  but  none  to  be  compared 
to  this  into  which  we  get  ourselves  by  departing  from 
interpretation,  and  taking  this  pious  talking  science  for 
our  guide. 

Some  answer  might  be  attempted  to  this,  by  the  sup- 
position, for  it  would  be  nothing  more,  that  all  organic 
bodies  in  the  universe  are  of  equal  age,  that  all  parts 
have  'proceeded  jyari  passu  from  the  first  nebular  stages, 
exhibiting,  at  every  date,  and  at  the  present  time,  an 
equal  advancement ;  so  that  the  same  days,  the  same 
periods  of  gaseous  fluid,  water,  atmosphere,  land,  vegeta- 
tion, animal  life,  etc.,  would  do  for  all.  In  other  words, 
that  the  day  of  the  week  for  each  might  be  found  from 
the  same  almanack,  and  the  age  of  each  determined  from 
the  same  chronological  table.  But  there  is  no  evidence 
of  this.  The  visible  analogy  of  things  furnishes  strong 
evidence  to  the  contrary.     Even  to  the  naked  eye  there 


256      "STAR   DIFFERETH   FROM    STAR   IN    GLORY." 

are  striking  differences  in  the  apparent  states  of  different 
parts  of  the  visible  universe.  "  One  star  differeth  from 
another  star  in  glory."  It  is  probable  that  there  is  a 
like  difference  in  their  ages.  We  mean  their  relative 
age ;  for  one  organism  may  have  existed  for  thousands 
of  centuries  and  yet  be  in  its  youth,  whilst  another,  mea- 
sured but  by  days  or  years,  has  already  reached  its  de- 
crepitude. The  telescope  carries  the  proof  of  this  much 
farther.  Modern  discovery  shows  that  the  varieties  are 
Incalculable.  They  run  through  all  degrees  of  infancy, 
'of  juniority,  and  perhaps  of  senile  decay.  Even  in  our 
near  solar  system,  right  round  us  we  may  say,  great  vari- 
eties present  themselves  in  the  stages  of  progress. 
There  is  good  evidence  that  some  of  the  planets  are  not 
yet  as  far  advanced  as  earth  in  its  first  and  second  days. 
Jupiter,  huge  as  he  is,  has  not  yet  got  off  his  "  swad- 
dling bands."  (See  Job  xxxviii.)  He  is  where  the  earth 
was  when  the  cloud  was  its  permanent  garment.  Our 
best  astronomers  have  just  shown  that  the  rings  of  Saturn 
are  in  a  fluid  state.  He  exhibits  what  some,  with  much 
plausibility,  think  Moses  may  have  meant  of  an  ancient 
state  of  the  earth,  when  there  was  a  real  sea  of  waters 
above  as  well  as  below  the  firmament.*  Our  more  dis- 
tant neighbor,  Neptune,  may  be  nothing  but  gas,  or  have 
lardly  arrived  at  the  density  of  liquid  ether.  Mars 
may  be  yet  azoic,  or,  "  as  nearly  as  we  can  learn,  some- 
where between  the  coal  period  and  the  middle  reptilian" ; 
whilst  Mercury  may  have  passed  that  stage  of  condensa- 

*  111  tliis  way.  perlmps,  vre  might  account  for  the  fli)0<l,  as  has  been  at- 
tempted by  some  writers.  ludeeii,  we  know  of  no  hypothesis  that  would 
so  readily  explain  some  of  the  ditliculties  that  are  involved  in  every  other 
view  we  can  take  of  that  event.  It  would  correspond  well  to  certain 
parts  of  the  language  employed,  and  yet  be  none  the  less  miraculous. 


IMMENSE   DIVERSITY   IN   THE   UNIVERSE.  257 

lion  -where  life  exists  no  more,  and  the  mass,  again  become 
azoic,  remains  simplj  to  preserve  the  balance  of  the  sys- 
tem, or  to  show  that  worlds  may  die  as  well  as  the  beings 
that  dwell  upon  them, —  or  to  serve  some  other  among  the 
inscrutable  purposes  of  God.  In  the  more  distant  parts 
of  the  heavens  the  differences  become  still  wider.  Thin 
nebular  films  flit  across  the  field  of  the  telescope,  pre- 
senting continuous  magnitudes,  which,  though  barely  visi" 
ble,  must  occupy  more  space  than  all  between  our  north- 
ern Pole  Star  and  the  Southern  Cross,  or,  perhaps,  than 
all  included  in  the  universe  of  stars  that  reach  our  naked 
eye  ;  and  yet  these  immense  cosmical  nebulae  may  have 
not  yet  begun  to  form  their  initial  vortices  around  their  first 
centres  of  motion.  The  evidence  is  all  in  favor  of  diver- 
sity, immense  diversit}^,  in  rank,  in  magnitude,  and  so  in 
time  and  age.  Some  of  these  worlds,  if  we  choose  to  call 
them  such,  may  have  reached  their  full  formed  organism ; 
others  have  just  broken  their  shell,  or  to  use  more  scien- 
tific language,  thrown  off  their  rings ;  whilst,  in  others, 
the  foetal  albumen  out  of  which  is  to  come  the  future 
^wov,  has  barely  commenced  its  inceptive  coagulation. 
There  may  be,  there  must  be,  if  there  is  any  truth  in 
scientific  analogy,  (and  those  who  would  charge  us  with 
impiety  should  remember  we  are  only  following  science 
here,)  the  same  variety  of  age  and  condition  in  the  greater 
as  in  the  lesser  organisms  of  the  universe.  To  deny  it  is 
to  go  counter  to  all  analogy  and  all  induction.  As  well 
talk  of  the  plant  in  our  gardens,  which  comes  up  "  the 
son  of  a  night,"  like  Jonah's  gourd,  having  a,  pari  passu 
ujermination  with  the  oak  of  Etna  that  threw  off  its  first 
rings  centuries  ago.  The  one  would  be  no  more  unsci- 
entific than  the  other.     And  yet  all  this  must  be  done  to 

22* 


258  THE   CHASM   OF  THE   SECOND   DAY, 

accommodate  a  scheme  that  even  then  has  to  put  a  still 
-greater  force  upon  the  simple  language  in  which  IMoses 
presents  the  indefinite  periods  in  his  creative  history  of 
our  earth.  Lord's  exact  twenty-four  hour  times,  opposed 
as  they  are  to  the  most  common  observation  of  terres- 
trial phenomena,  as  well  as  to  any  fair  interpretation  of 
the  Mosaic  words,  are  still  more  rational,  more  consistent, 
than  this  pious  science. 

But  how  to  bridge  the  chasm.  This  is  the  question  to 
which  we  return.  Prof.  Dana  has  a  most  ingenious  way. 
He  leaves  out  the  second  day  entirely  ;  or,  rather,  dis- 
poses of  it  by  way  of  apology  in  a  modest,  retiring  note, 
thus  leaving  his  lost  reader  to  choose  any  such  way  of 
crossing  this  immense  hiatus  as  his  imagination  might 
suggest.  The  writer  was  evidently  pressed  with  some 
difficulty  here,  and  with  good  reason ;  for  on  his  theory 
he  could  make  nothing  of  this  second  day.  Here  must 
be  somehow  found  the  sudden  descent  from  the  nebular 
heights  into  this  "  little  satellite  of  ours."  The  difficulty, 
indeed,  is  great ;  it  is  evidently  felt  to  be  such  ;  but, 
instead  of  admitting  it,  as  students  of  exegesis  are  in  the 
habit  of  doing,  the  writer  finds  ease  and  refuge  in  a 
note.  Now  we  have  no  objection  to  the  note  per  se,  as 
our  readers,  perhaps,  have  found  to  their  vexation.  But 
in  this  case  there  is  something  quite  peculiar  about  it. 
The  humble  appearance  of  this  marginal  remark  is  in 
curious  contrast  with  the  vaunting  style  of  the  large-print 
text  above,  where  there  is  such  a  magniloquent  account 
of  what  geology  has  brought  to  light.  Alas,  the  mummy 
light  of  geology  ! — we  cannot  help  repeating  the  thpught 
—  alas  for  us  if  we  had  no  other !  It  cannot  better  be 
described  than  in  the  language  of  Milton, — 

Not  light,  but  darknesa  visible. 


BRIDGED   BY   A   MODEST   NOTE.  259 

We  may^  indeed,  see  something  when  we  cast  among  its 
shadows  the  reflection  of  certain  a  priori  ideas,  or  carry 
with  us  amid  its  caverns  the  torch  of  revelation,  if  not  as 
a  scientific  guide,  at  least  as  an  assurer  of  the  divine 
wisdom.  But,  the  Bible  gone — forever  gone  —  what 
then  would  be  the  light  of  geology  ?  It  would  be  a  reve- 
lation of  horrors  —  of  dissolving,  upheaving,  ruined  worlds, 
—  of  progress,  if  it  has  any  apparent  progress,  full  of 
loops  and  retrogressions,  without  any  security,  even  in  its 
most  rapidly  advancing,  or  seemingly  advancing  stages, 
against  catastrophies  greater  than  any  before  experi- 
enced. It  would  reveal  to  us  long  races  of  mutually  de- 
vouring monsters,  with  a  human  race  at  last  "  coming  in 
with  vanity  and  departing  in  darkness,"  born  in  dark- 
ness, living  in  darkness,  dying  in  darkness,  and,  as  far 
as  all  mere  scientific  analogy  can  give  us  any  lesson,  des- 
tined to  furnish  the  exhumed  fossils  of  another  geological 
era,  ages  after  they  have  passed  off  to  make  room  for 
another  race,  it  may  be  higher,  it  may  be  lower,  accord- 
ing as  the  wheel  of  nature  turns,  or  the  terms  higher 
and  lower  can  have  any  meaning  in  her  everlastmg  cycles 
of  a  seeming  retrogradation  or  procession. 

But  we  are  too  much  tempted  to  digress  on  such  a 
a  theme.  The  reader  is,  perhaps,  impatient  for  this 
lucid  note.  Here  it  is :  "  We  have  omitted" — it  timidly 
ventures  to  say, — 

"  We  have  omitted  any  special  reference  to  the  second  day,  as  neither 
geology  nor  general  science,  apart  from  astronomy  and  general  reasoning, 
afford  much  aid  iu  iatei-pretiug  the  account.  The  step  ofprogi-ess  was  one 
between  that  of  light  through  universal  space  on  the  first  day,  and  the 
separation  of  the  lands  and  seas  in  the  second.  The  event  of  the  highest 
importance  in  that  interval,  that  marking  a  grand  epoch  in  terrestrial  time, 
was  the  elimination  or  separation  of  the  earth  itself  from  the  deep  of  wa- 
ters, (admitted  to  mean  fluid  in  its  most  extended  sense.)" 


260    DATE   AND   PLACE   OF   THE   TELLURIAN   BIRTH. 

This  very  curious  production  may  be  found  at  the  bottom 
of  the  116th  page  of  the  January  number  of  the  Andover 
BibUotheca  Sacra  for  1856.  We  propose  to  make  it  the 
subject  of  a  brief  exegesis.  The  writer  starts  from  the 
absolute  beginning  of  all  created  entity,  and  rambles 
about  the  roomy  regions  of  time  and  space,  though  seem- 
ingly without  chart  or  compass,  until  he  finds  himself 
brought  up  in  the  "  dry  land  of  Labrador,"  and  among 
the  azoic  rocks  of  this  Western  continent.  He  takes  an 
observation,  and  finds  it  must  be  somewhere  about  the 
beginning  or  middle  of  the  third  day.  But  what  has 
become  of  the  second  ?  The  question  seems  to  have  start- 
led him.  It  is  too  important  a  period  to  be  passed  wholly 
over ;  some  account  must  be  taken  of  it,  and  as  "  neither 
geology  nor  general  science  apart  from  general  reasoning 
afibrd  nluch  aid,"  the  only  resource  was  this  guessing 
note,  which,  after  all,  afibrds  no  explanation,  or  even  hint 
at  explanation,  of  the  mighty  difficulty.  And  this  is  all  the 
light  "  Geology,"  though  aided  by  "  general  science  and 
general  reasoning,"  can  throw  upon  the  grand  epoch 
which  Moses  sets  forth  in  such  graphic  and  lucid  images. 
The  author  of  the  note,  however,  means  to  have  room 
enough.  "  The  step  of  progress  was  somewhere  between 
that  of  light  through  universal  space^  on  the  first  day, 
and  the  lands  and  seas."  Soyneivhere,  then,  between 
these  two  bounds  of  "universal  space"  and  the  "dry 
land  of  Labrador,"  and  at  some  time  between  these  tv^ro 
dates,  the  absolute  beginning  of  all  things,  and  the  azoic 
period  of  this  Western  Continent,  our  mother  earth  was 
born.  The  author  of  the  Book  of  Job  was  not  so  ambi- 
tious to  determine  the  exact  natal  chronology.  He  takes 
the  infant  Tellus  in  her  swaddling  robes,  and  this  poetical 


CAN   "  THE   waters"   MEAN   ANY   FLUIDITY  ?      261 

description  corresponds  well  to  the  birth-day  as  written 
by  Moses  in  the  old  Family  Bible,  when  thick  dark- 
ness rested  upon  the  waters.  "  These  waters,"  says  the 
note,  "  are  admitted  to  mean  fluid  in  its  most  extended 
sense."  The  writer  means,  in  the  sense  of  his  nebular 
[ether,  or  whatever  might  be  that  first  matter  of  the  uni- 
verse that  just  rose  above  nonentity.  But  by  whom  is 
this  admitted  ?  There  would  be  no  objection  to  it  if  other 
things  in  the  account  favored  such  an  interpretation ;  for 
the  two  ideas  of  the  liquid  and  the  aeriform  fluidity  run 
into  each  other,  and  terms  to  express  the  one,  in  any  lan- 
guage, may  very  easily  and  naturally  flow  into  the  other 
sense.  If,  therefore,  it  could  be  shown  that  such  a  blend- 
ing was  in  harmony,  or  might  have  been  in  harmony, 
with  the  thinking  of  the  Mosaic  age,  (in  such  a  way  as 
has  been  abundantly  proved  in  respect  to  the  indefinite 
extension  of  the  word  day)  there  might,  in  that  case,  be 
constructed  a  very  respectable  argument  in  favor  of  such 
a  view.  But  we  do  not  think  that  this  can  be  shown. 
No  hermeneutical  evidence  could  be  brought  from  any 
word  or  passage  in  the  Bible  for  its  support.*     There  is, 

'Something  might  be  conceded  to  this  view,  if  there  could  be  found  a 
single  instance,  in  the  Old  Testament,  of  the  Hebrew  t=)''tt  being  used  in 
this  extended  sense.  It  is  employed  sometimes  to  denote  other  liquids 
than  water,  but  never  anything  in  a  gaseous  or  aeriform  state,  even  if  we 
may  suppose  the  Hebrews  to  have  had  that  idea  at  all.  The  air  or  wind 
they  hardly  regarded  as  material  substance.  The  Greeks  had  the  notion, 
but  they  never  employ  u(5w^  for  it.  The  plural  foi-m  of  the  Hebrew  word 
comes  from  the  idea  oi abundance  as  suggested  by  the  image  of  the  vast 
waters  of  the  sea  or  ocean,  and  from  this  comes  its  metaphorical  sense  of 
overwhelming  sorrow  or  affliction.  But  throughout,  there  is  the  thought 
of  the  element  water  instead  of  the  general  idea  of  fluidity  as  opposed  to 
solidity.  The  term  fluid  savors  of  science.  It  denotes  a  state  rather  than 
any  particular  substance,  and  we  look  in  vain  for  anything  like  it  in  the 
use  of  the  Hebrew  word. 


262  EXEGESIS   OF  THE   NOTE. 

moreover,  no  need  of  it  to  elevate  our  view  of  the  pas- 
sage, or  to  give  it  any  additional  grandeur.  For,  unless 
we  make  greatness  consist  alone  in  space,  the  conception 
of  a  world  of  waters  with  darkness  resting  upon  them, 
and  the  Divine  Spirit  brooding  over  them,  and  the  Divine 
Word  commanding  the  light  to  shine  out  of  them,  is  a 
much  grander  conception  than  that  of  thin  gaseous  neb- 
ul[c,  or  universal  ?ethers,  having  aside  from  their  vast- 
ness  hardly  anything  for  the  imaging  faculty,  and  fur- 
nishing even  still  less  material  for  the  constructive  views 
of  the  scientific  reason. 

There  are  a  few  remarks  more  to  be  made  on  this  very 
remarkable  note.  "  We  have  omitted,"  it  says,  "  any 
special  reference  to  the  second  day."  Why  is  the  word 
special  used  here,  except  from  a  sense  of  difficulty,  and 
a  consciousness  on  the  part  of  the  writer  that  he  was  not 
using  the  Mosaic  Record  fairly  ?  It  would  seem  to  imply 
that  there  has  been  a  general  mention  of  this  important 
period, —  something  which,  though  not  carried  out  in  sci- 
entific detail,  would,  in  some  other  way,  be  worthy  of  its 
rank  and  value  in  the  creative  calendar.  But  there  is 
no  mention  of  it  whatever,  cither  general  or  special,  ex- 
cept in  this  apologizing  note.  It  remains  a  dreary  vacu- 
ity, an  ominous  blank  in  a  scheme  that  is  ushered  in  with 
so  much  parade  as  the  grand  diapason  harmony  of  the 
creative  revelation.  Again  —  it  says,  Avith  still  more 
modesty  —  "we  have  omitted  any  special  reference  to 
the  second  day,  as  neither  geology  nor  general  science, 
apart  from  astronomy  and  general  reasoning,  afibrd  much 
aid."  There  is  certainly  a  great  deal  of  generalizing 
here,  and  no  little  efibrt,  it  would  seem,  to  keep  clear  of 
any  distinct  meaning.     Not  but  that  Professor  Dana  can 


A   PAGE   LOST   IN   THE   GEOLOGICAL   HEXAPLA.     263 

■write  distinctly  enough  when  he  chooses,  but  the  absence 
of  all  meaning  was  the  very  thing  wanted  in  this  emer- 
gency. To  seem,  therefore,  to  say  something  on  this 
second  day,  and  yet,  in  reality  to  say  nothing,  or  next 
to  nothing,  about  it,  would  appear  to  have  been  the  pur- 
pose of  the  note,  and  this  purpose,  it  may  be  said,  has 
been  quite  successfully  accomplished.  It  is  hinted,  that 
some  help,  in  this  distress,  might  be  got  "  from  astronomy 
and  general  reasoning."  We  can  hardly  imagine  what 
that  help  could  be  ;  but  why  did  not  the  writer  avail  him- 
self of  it,  be  it  scanty  or  not.  It  was  certainly  a  matter 
of  importance  that  this  blank  in  the  days  should,  in  some 
way,  be  filled  up.  As  it  stands,  it  is  really  a  deformity 
in  Professor  Dana's  geological  hexapla ;  it  is  a  sad  dis- 
cord in  his  "  harmony."  But  if  "  astronomy  and  gene- 
ral reasoning"  failed  as  well  as  geology,  why  could  he 
not  have  paid  Moses  here  the  compliment  of  consulting 
him  about  a  matter  on  which  he  professes  to  give  very 
distinct  knowledge,  and  that,  too,  as  the  Professor  firmly 
believes,  coming  from  the  inspiration  and  revelation  of 
the  Creator  himself.  But  whatever  view  may  be  enter- 
tained of  Moses  in  his  general  claim  of  authority,  or  of 
the  Scriptural  account  as  being  unnecessary  when  geo- 
logy speaks,  still,  in  such  a  case  as  this,  it  ought  to  have 
been  treated  with  at  least  the  respect  certain  sceptical 
ethnologists  pay  to  the  Bible  when  they  can  fill  up  a  gap 
in  their  profane  history  in  no  other  way.  When  the 
hieroglyphics  and  the  Sphynxes  fail,  they  come  to  Genesis. 
Now  Moses  says  distinctly  that  on  the  second  day  God 
made  the  rakia  or  sky,  which  he  named  "/ieayews,"  as 
somethmg  built  over  the  earth,  in  which  sky,  or  Gima- 
ment,  or  ^-  heavens,"  the  heavenly  bodies  afterwards  t?/- 


264  A   BLANK   "WASTE   IN   COSMOLOGY. 

peared, —  the  very  sky,  we  think  he  meant,  in  ■which 
they  appear  now, —  the  same  "  old  rolliiig  heavens"  on 
which  so  many  generations  have  gazed,  and  of  which  the 
most  scientific  mind  can  form  no  grander  conception  than 
to  image  them  just  as  they  are,  and  as  they  ever  have 
appeared.  In  Professor  Dana's  theory,  the  sky,  or 
rakia,  if  it  have  any  meaning  at  all,  or  is  anything  but  a 
blank  waste  in  cosmology,  is  the  universal  nebulous  fluid 
throwing  off  its  rings,  cosmical,  stellar,  solar,  planetary, 
satellital, —  thus  parting  into  immense  divisions  and  sub- 
divisions, among  which  our  solar  system  (for  all  analogy 
is  against  any  attempt  to  set  bounds  here)  may  have 
been  the  millionth,  and  our  earth  the  millionillionth  in  the 
order,  not  only  of  space,  but  of  time  descents. 

There  was  something,  however,  which  made  this  ambi- 
tious view  of  the  Mosaic  language  too  much  for  scientific 
consistency.  The'difficulty  is  felt  to  be  pressing.  Still, 
when  once  assumed,  the  theory  could  not  be  easily  aban- 
doned, or  laid  aside,  although  the  writer  must  in  some 
way  get  down  to  the  earth.  To  do  this  at  once  would 
be  too  great  a  venture.  The  third  day  is  evidently  ter- 
restrial, and  can  be  nothing  else.  The  second  day,  is 
therefore,  wholly  omitted  in  the  scientific  text,  and  the 
bewildered  reader,  not  knowing  where  he  is  or  how  he 
got  there,  is  left  to  cross  the  gulph,  as  well  as  he  can, 
on  the  trembling  suspension  bridge  that  is  so  hastily  con- 
structed in  the  note. 

We  learn  something  from  this.  Science,  too,  when 
hard  pressed,  even  "  exact  science,"  or  "  positive  sci- 
ence," as  it  may  be  called  in  more  senses  than  one,  has 
to  talk  about  mysteries,  and  call  in  "  the  aid  of  general 
reasoning,"  and  even  then  to  confess  that  she  knows  no- 


KNOWLEDGE   PHTSIACOUS.  265 

thing  of  matters  slic  had  set  out  so  vauntinglj  and  confi- 
dently to  explain.  Is  it  uncharitable  to  say  that  such 
science  is  allied,  at  least,  to  the  gnosis  of  which  Paul 
speaks,  1  Cor.  viii,  1  ?  It  is  a  knowledge  physiacous* 
rather  than  physical,  a  knowledge  that  "blows,"  or  "  puf- 
feth  up,"  instead  of  "  edifying,"  that  is,  building  reve- 
rently on  the  only  safe  foundation  for  human  thought. 
But  it  is  enough  for  us  to  be  certain  that  Moses  knew 
nothing  about  nebulous  fluids  and  nebular  rings.  Of 
great  times  and  olams,  and  olams  of  olams,  he  and  the 
men  of  his  day  were  fond  of  thinking.  The  xcth  Psalm, 
which  has  been  so  often  quoted,  shoAvs  how  familiar  was 
the  conception  to  his  solemn  musings.  Elsewhere  we 
have  given  a  reason  for  this,  derived  from  the  very  laws 
of  thinking.  Time  belonging  solely  to  the  inner  sense, 
as  the  measure  of  successive  thoughts  rather  than  out- 
ward distances,  its  mental  extension  is  easier  and  earlier 
than  that  of  the  corresponding  space  conception.  Hence 
it  required  no  outward  science,  either  for  the  birth  or 
the  rapid  nurture  of  the  thought.  It  has  given  rise,  too 
to  a  very  ancient  and  wide  spread  use  of  language  which 
other  and  more  modern  conceptions  never  would  have 
originated.  Such  an  idea,  then,  of  great  times  lay  har- 
moniously in  the  mind  of  Moses,  and,  in  perfect  consis- 
tency with  the  genius  of  his  own  and  the  other  earliest 
Shemitic  languages,  he  called  them  days  with  their  won- 
drous nights  and  mornings  ;  but  this  had  nothing  to  do 
with  any  science.  He  knew  no  more  of  Professor  Da:^a's 
rings  than  of  Mr.  Lord's  "  echptic  axes"  ;  and  although 
he  may  be  of  httle  account  in  their  scientific  or  unscien- 

•  Not  fiom  (puo'ig',  but  from,  (putfaw,  or  (putfidw,  to  blow,  puff,  blaw  up, 
Heucc,  (pua'>j,aaTa,  hloicbicrs,  bubbles,  etc. 


266  ARCHEOLOGY   AND   ESCHATOLOGY. 

tific  schemes,  yet  the  forcing  upon  him  of  so  much  geo- 
logical or  astronomical  knowledge  really  over-docs  the 
business.  It  is  too  much  for  the  credulity,  either  of  the 
sciolist  or  the  religionist. 

This  extreme  nebular  view  of  the  Mosaic  account  may 
be  met  by  the  same  answer  that  we  have  given  to  Mr. 
Lord's  narrow  hypothesis.  They  are  both,  although  in 
draerent  ways,  opposed  to  what  may  be  called  the  archaeo- 
logical and  eschatological  analogy  of  Scripture.  First, 
—  to  compare  it  with  the  narrower  view, —  the  creative 
days  are  no  more  common  solar  days  than  the  great 
days  of  prophecy  are  such.  The  darkness  on  the  waters, 
the  Brooding  Spirit,  the  sky  appearing,  land  appearing, 
vegetation,  animation,  man — these  are  no  more  confined 
within  the  clock-measured  limits  of  twenty-four  hours 
each,  than  the  great  "  Latter  Day"  of  the  world,  the 
"  Day  of  Judgment,"  the  "  Day  of  Christ's  Reign,"  or 
the  Hfjt-s'^a  Aiuvos  of  St.  Peter.  And  so — to  run  the  se- 
cond parallel  —  these  creative  epochs  of  our  own  planet 
have  no  more  connection  with  universal  nebular  conden- 
sations, and  the  origin  of  galaxies,  stellar,  and  solar  sys- 
tems, than  the  corresponding  predicted  periods  of  earth's 
eschatology  have  to  do  with  the  destinies  of  Sirius  and 
Orion.  There  is  grandeur  enough  in  Moses  as  he  is. 
Science  can  never  elevate  his  thought,  or  mend  his  lan- 
guage. "  And  darkness  was  upon  the  face  of  the  Deep, 
and  the  Spirit  of  God  was  brooding  o'er  the  waters," — 
the  same  waters  that  afterwards  in  obedience  to  this  life- 
giving  power  "  brought  forth  the  living  thing"  each  after 
its  type,  idea,  or  kind.  How  remarkable  the  conception  ! 
We  have  become  familiar  with  it ;  we  have  marred  it  by 
our  science  and  our  philosophy.     But  throwing  these 


GRANDEUR   OF  MOSES. 


267 


aside,  and  going  back  to  the  early  day  when  this  was 
written,  we  can  never  exhaust  our  wonder  in  the  contem- 
plation.    Whence  came  it  to  these  primitive  writers  of 
Job  and  Genesis  ?    The  difficulty  is  certainly  not  met  by 
saying  that  they  took  it  from  others,  even  if  there  were 
any  proof  of  such  a  mere  assertion.     Whence  came  it  to 
the  early  human  thought  at  all  ?    Viewed  even  as  an 
pagination,  a  picture  of  the  mind,  it  is  hard  to  account 
for  it  without  the  aid  of  the  supernatural,  or  to  resist  the 
belief  that  it  came  from  a  knowledge  higher  than  any  to 
which  science  can  ever  hope  to  attain.     There  is  gran- 
deur enough  in  JMoses  as  he  is,  we  say  again.     It  i1  the 
only  greatness  that  can  truly  and  religiously  affect  us. 
The  nebular  view  of  the  universe  may  be  physically  right 
m  itself.  ^  It  strongly  challenges  our  admiration.     But, 
after  all,  it  has  mainly  guesses  for  our  science,  whilst  it 
presents  but  a  cold  waste  for  the  imagination.     It  con- 
nects itself  but  little  with  any  devout  feeling,  and  has 
really  no  basis  in  any  fair  interpretation  of  Scripture. 


268    SCIENTIFIC  SIX  DAYS  AT  WAR  WITH  EXEGESIS. 


CHAPTER  IX. 


SCIENTIFIC    SIX   LAYS    AT   WAR   WITH   EXEGESIS. 

'The  Word  Bara. —  The  Beginning — Tlie  Shemitie  Mind — 

Words  for  Creation. — The  Heir exo — The  Neto  Testament 

Terms —  The  Philosophical  Greeh —  The  Arabic  Words  for 

Creation — Emotional  Aim  of  the  Bible. — Did  Moses  think 

of  an  Absolute  Principium'^ — Six  Arguments :  \st.  From 

the  First  Verse  generally — 2,d.    The  Words  Heaven  and 

Earth;  Do  they  denote  Universality'^ — M.  The  Earth  the 

Locus  of  the  First  Energizing  mentioned  by  Moses — ^th. 

The  Light  after  the  Waters — Wi.   Heavens  Built  over  the 

Earth — Qth.    The  First  Verse,  if  severed  from  the  rest, 

must  be  Extra  Dies. — Parallelism  of  the  Mosaic  Account 

with  the  First  of  John, — Patristic  View  of  its  3c?  and  Ath 

Verses. 

Such  is  a  fair  statement  of  the  scientific  difficulties  in 

the  way  of  this  nebulai-  accommodation  of  the  IMosaic 

account.     There  may  be  errors  in  detail.     There  may 

be  some  things  the  sciolist  may  call  blunders,  and  for 

which  we  should  not  be  much  concerned,  even  should  he 

prove  them  to  be  such.     For  the  general  view  the  author 

holds  himself  responsible,  and  the  foundation  that  has 

been  laid  for  it,  he  thinks,  can  not  be  shaken.     But  now, 

turn  we  to  another  proof,  to  the  more  sure  ground  of 

rational   exegesis.     Connected  with  these    questions  is 

the  meanina;  of  the  word  sis,  rendered  create,  the  mean- 


THE    VrORD    BARA.  269 

ing  of  the  word  ^^»m-.,  or  beginning,  the  meaning  of  the 
expression  used  to  denote  the  origination  of  the  earthlj 
light,  and  the  discussion  of  the  order  in  which  the  first 

creative  events  —  we  mean  those  recorded  by  Moses 

actually  took  place.  We  will  touch  upon  these  in  'the 
briefest  manner  consistent  with  their  importance,  avoid- 
ing, as  much  as  possible,  what  has  been  elesewhere  and 
previously  said. 

The  author  has  been  asked,  "  what  Hebrew  word  he 
would  substitute  for  the  one  used,  that  would  convey  the 
precise  idea  of  creation  out  of  noihmg,''—(^Bihliotheca 
Sacra  for  Jan.  1856,^.  103).     He  answers  very  briefly, 
—  there  is  no  such  Hebrew  word ;  there  is  none  such  in 
the  old  Shemitic  languages,  and  the  only  reason  that 
can  be  given  for  it  is  that  there  was  no  such  idea  in  the 
Shemitic  mind,— we  mean  no  such  idea  objectively  con- 
templated, or  that  had  made  itself  outward  in  their  actual 
thinking.     The  root  xna  is  sometimes  used  to  denote 
the  "  making  of  a  new  tiling  in  the  earth,"  as  in  Jeremiah 
xxxi,  22,  or  a  prodigy,  something  before  unknown,  or 
that  had  not  appeared,  as  in  Numbers  xvi,  30;  but 
how  different  this  is  from  that  most  difficult  of  all  meta- 
physical conceptions,  the  bringing  into  substance  from 
absolute  nihility,  every  candid,  inteUigent  reader  must 
at  once  perceive.     In  one  sense,  and  a  very  inteHigible 
sense,  the  production  of  any  new  tUng,  or  of  ^.xi^new 
state  of  things,  is  a  making  of  what  ^vas  not  before,  and 
so  a  coming  forth  from  not  being.     In  this  view  the  hu- 
man artist  creates  what  before  was  not.     The  rags  are 
not  the  paper  that  is  made  from  them,  nor  the  paplr  the 
rags.     Neither  are  the  paper,  the  ink,  the  cloth,  in  a 
true  sense,  the  book,  even  regarded  in  its  mechanical  or 

23* 


270  GOD    OLDER   THAX   MATTER. 

artistic  execution,  much  less  the  -words,  and  still  less  the 
thoughts  contained.  The  extraordinary  nature  of  the 
act  makes  no  difference  in  the  case.  The  opening  of  the 
earth,  Numbers  xvi,  30,  was  not  the  elimination  of  any 
new  substance,  nor  of  any  new  force,  but  only  the  bring- 
ing out  of  a  new  effect  from  causes  natural  or  supernatu- 
ral. In  other  words,  trace  it  as  far  as  we  will,  it  is  ever, 
in  such  cases,  to  be  regarded  as  a  new  thing,  not  new 
matter.  And  yet  it  does  not  follow,  but  that  if  the 
question  had  been  distinctly  put  to  an  ancient  Hebrew 
or  Arab,  Do  you  believe  the  world,  or  even  matter  (mak- 
ing him  understand  the  distinction)  to  be  as  old  as  God  ? 
he  would  not  have  said  No  as  distinctly  as  the  profound- 
est  theologian  or  metaphysician  among  us ;  as  intelli- 
gently, too,  we  might  say,  since,  in  respect  to  this  primal 
idea,  all  minds  are  on  a  par — it  being  rather  a  neces- 
sary logical  negation  we  are  compelled  to  utter,  than  any 
thing  we  can  reduce  to  a  conception,  or  any  form  of  ra- 
tional thought.  So  we  believe  that  the  descendant, 
Avhether  of  Isaac  or  of  Ishmael,  would  have  promptly 
.answered,  had  the  query  been  presented  to  him :  but 
;it  was  not  a  speculation  of  that  Hebrew  mind,  nor  a 
form  of  that  Hebrew  mode  of  conceiving,  nor,  conse- 
quently, a  phrase  of  that  Hebrew  mode  of  language 
which  God  in  his  wisdom  selected  as  the  human  me- 
dium of  his  oldest  revelation.  We  venture,  therefore, 
to  say,  that  creation  out  of  nothing  is  neither  affirmed 
nor  denied  in  the  Old  Testament,*  although  the  divine 
huilding  (xtiVis)  of  this  present  world  of  ours,  and  of 
the  heavens,  or  sky,  immediately  around  it,  and  the  ap- 

*  Wc  moan,  by  any  use  of  this  word ;  although  there  are  passages 
where  the  idea  may  seem  to  be  expressed  in  some  other  way,  as  Isaiah, 
xlviii,  13. 


THE  PURE  SHEMITIC  THEISM.         271 

pearances  of  the  heavenly  bodies  therein,  are  most  sub- 
limely set  forth, —  far  more  subhmel}'-  and  impressively 
than  could  have  been  done  by  any  metaphysical  lan- 
guage that  would  have -been  required  for  the  abstract 
idea.  Such  speculations  about  the  eternity  or  non-eter- 
nity of  matter,  were  on  each  side  of  the  Children  of 
Shem — beyond  the  Indus  and  beyond  the  Halys.  They 
entered  into  the  early  Greek  and  Hindoo  philosophy; 
but  the  Shemitic  mind,  that  lay  between,  was  too  simply 
practical  in  its  worship  to  think  much  about  them,  and 
too  pure  in  its  theism  to  feel  much  alarm  about  them. 
Paradoxical  as  it  may  appear,  we  may  even  venture  the 
opinion,  that  this  pure  theism  was  saved  from  a  philoso- 
phical deterioration,  by  that  very  thing  which  some  would 
object  to  as  the  anthropopathism  of  the  Old  Testament. 
It  is  pantheism  with  its  philosophical  dialect  and  its  ir- 
reverent attempts  to  explain  the  inexplicable  archreology 
of  the  universe,  that  has  bred  the  wildest  theological  mon- 
sters. It  is  the  scientific  theism  that  runs  into  a  dry 
nature  worship,  whether  disguised  in  the  mythological 
forms  under  which  the  crude  yet  ambitious  knowledge 
of  the  early  times  sought  to  conceal  itself  from  the  vulgar, 
or  the  talk  of  laws,  and  forces,  and  principia,  whicli  now 
serves  as  the  medium  of  a  like  spirit,  and  a  cover  to  a 
like  false  yet  vaunting  religionism.  The  anthropopathic 
images  of  the  Jewish  Scriptures  preserved  that  all-impor- 
tant idea  of  personality, —  an  idea  of  so  much  more  reli- 
gious value  than  any  abstract  notions  of  causation  or 
originating  power,  and  which  is  ever  tending  to  perish 
from  the  minds  of  those  who  claim  to  themselves  what 
they  would  call  a  higher  style  of  thought  and  language. 
We  believe  that  every  one  must  feel  this  who  enters 


272  GREEK    PHILOSOPHICAL   LANGUAGE. 

deeply  into  the  spirit  of  the  Old  Scriptures  ;  neither  can 
such  a  one  fail  to  have  observed  the  remarkable  fact, 
how  intimately  connected,  sometimes,  is  this  anthropo- 
pathic  language  with  other  declarations  that  startle  us 
by  a  spirituality  of  conception  surpassing  the  highest  hu- 
man utterance. 

And  thus  do  these  Scriptures  speak  of  creation.  We 
recognize  this  combination  of  the  unutterably  sublime 
with  the  simplest  forms  of  speech  expressive  of  architec- 
tural or  constructive  ideas.  The  same  mode  of  thinkinsr 
and  speaking  comes  down,  too,  to  the  writers  of  the  New 
Testament.  They^  certainly,  were  not  compelled  to  em- 
ploy language  merely  adapted,  as  some  would  say,  to  the 
infancy  of  the  world,  and  only  used  in  the  early  days 
because  nothing  better  and  higher  could  then  be  obtained. 
Philosophy,  in  the  meantime,  had  grown  to  swelling 
dimensions.  The  language  in  which  they  wrote  abound- 
ed in  her  choicest,  most  carefully  compounded  diction. 
There  Avas  certainly  no  lack  of  metaphysical  terms  in  the 
Greek,  as  is  shown  by  the  fact,  that,  in  this  respect,  it 
has  become  the  store-house  of  the  modern  philosophical 
speech.  Especially  was  this  the  case  in  regard  to  the 
language  of  generation  or  origin.  Plato's  Parmenides 
and  Timaeus  furnished  enough  of  this  lingo  of  the  heing 
and  not  being,  and  the  ovra,  and  the  m---?  ov<ra,  and  the 
yjyvofXEva,  and  the  ou(5;Vot£  yiyw\hiva,  to  have  enabled  Paul 
to  express  any  metaphysical  ideas  of  origin  he  might  have 
deemed  true  or  inspired.  Even  if  he  had  not  read  them, 
he  must  have  heard  much  of  them  in  the  jangling  schools 
of  Tarsus,  the  third  great  seat  of  Greek  philosophy,  but 
he  adopts  the  same  Old  Testament  style,  and  talks  just 
like  Moses,  and  uses  the  same  class  of  simple  construe- 


NEW   TESTAMEXT   WORDS    OF   CREATION.  273 

tive  -words.  Of  the  Hebrew  hara  what  better  exegesis 
can  we  give  than  the  New  Testament  '<ti^w,  xtiCis  ?  No 
Greek  philosopher  ever  used  these  for  creation,  and 
Evangelists  and  Apostles  need  not  have  employed  them 
had  they  not  supposed  them  the  best  representatives  of 
the  idea  expressed  by  the  Hebrew  word.  The  author  of 
the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  had  to  express  one  of  the 
sublimest  acts  of  faith,  and  the  sublimest  of  physical 
ideas,  even  the  origin  of  the  ^vorlds  or  ages  by  the  Eternal 
Word,  and  yet,  in  giving  us  this  ineffable  process,  he  em- 
ploys one  of  the  most  purely  artistic,  constructive,  archi- 
tectural, words  in  the  Greek  language,  xara^n'^w,  to  put 
together,  to  frame,  to  arrange  in  order,  to  refit,  to  repair, 
to  restore,  etc.,  all  of  which  imply  existing  entities.  It 
is  the  same  word  that  is  used  JMark  i,  19,  of  mending  fish 
nets,  that  is  apphed  here,  Heb.  xi,  3,  to  the  building  and 
framing  of  the  worlds.  We  have  reason  to  be  very 
thankful  for  this  style  of  speech.  The  man  Avho  stum- 
bles at  it  shows  himself  as  deficient  in  taste  as  he  is  low 
in  his  theology.  The  other  mode  is  conceptionless,  and 
therefore  false, —  false,  because  it  assumes  to  convey  an 
idea,  and  yet  presents  no  images  through  which  that  idea 
can  gain  a  habitation  in  the  mind.  The  apparently  sim- 
pler language  is  the  more  sublime,  and  therefore  the 
more  truthful, —  if  the  higher  object  of  revelation  be 
really  an  emotional  or  living  idea,  rather  than  barren 
scientific  or  philosophical  knowledge.  We  have  a  more 
lively  thought,  and  so  a  higher  and  truer  thought,  of 
God's  power  and  glory,  when  he  is  represented  to  us  as 
acting  on  -u'hat  is, —  dividing  waters,  sending  light  into 
chaoses,  separating  lands  and  seas,  fashioning,  arranging, 
organizing  worlds, —  than  could  ever  com.e  from  any  ab- 


2T4  ABSTRACT   IDEAS  UNEMOTIONAL. 

stract  language  attempting  ^Yith  ill  success  to  set  forth  a 
conceptionless  origination  from  a  blank  nonentity.  And 
so  in  regard  to  the  idea  of  nature,  we  have  a  more  vivid, 
and  therefore  a  more  truthful  impression  of  the  Divine 
imperial  majesty,  vrhen  we  contemplate  Deity  as  ruling 
over  nature  and  matter,  controlling  them,  subduing  them, 
commanding  them  like  strong  subjects,  or,  it  may  be  at 
times  like  rebellious  foes,  than  when  we  think  of  him  un- 
der the  bare  notion  of  origination,  or  as  a  power  diffused 
through  nature,  and  thus  to  the  mind's  conception  hardly 
distinguishable  from  it.  The  abstract  ideas  are  doubtless 
true.  We  are  forced  by  reason  to  acknowledge  them, 
but  it  is  as  a  necessity  of  our  intellectual  or  logical  think- 
ing, rather  than  as  connected  with  our  true  spiritual  life. 
And  on  this  account,  may  we  reverently  suppose,  has 
Scripture  kept  the  latter  in  the  back  ground,  or  barely 
given  us  the  premises  from  which  to  infer  their  truth, 
whilst  the  other  ideas  are  made  so  prominent  both  in  the 
older  and  the  later  revelation.  Such  is  the  method  of 
the  divine  writers.  When  we  have  more  of  the  same 
spirit,  we  shall  be  better  prepared  to  interpret  the  lan- 
guage in  which  they  convey  truths  transcending  all  hx\- 
man  philosophy,  and  leaving  infinitely  below  them  all 
human  science. 

As  having  a  direct  bearing  upon  this  question,  we 
have  taken  pains  to  examine  carefully  the  Arabic  words 
for  creation,  as  they  occur  in  the  Koran.  This  is  the 
more  pertinent,  as  the  Koran  is  not  only  the  oldest  style 
of  Arabic  well  known  to  us,  but  evidently  imitates  the 
thought  and  speech  of  an  antiquity  greater  than  its  own. 
Mohammed,  it  is  clear,  tries  to  be  more  philosophical 
than  Moses ;  but  these  old  Arabic  verbs  carry  us  back 


ARABIC  WORDS  OF  CREATION.         275 

to  the  same  simple  yet  grand  ideas  we  find  in  the  He- 
brew. We  give  them  in  Hebrew  letters,  for  the  want 
of  Arabic  type.     The  most  common  is 

Cha-la-qa,  (pVtt),  the  primary  sense  of  which  is  that 
of  smootJiing,  polisldng,  like  the  Latin  poZw,  and  the 
Greek  few  with  its  compounds  and  derivatives  so  often 
found  in  Homer.  There  is  the  same  primary  image  in 
the  root  as  it  occurs  in  the  Hebrew,  although,  in  that 
language,  it  is  never  used  for  creation.  The  creative 
idea,  as  given  by  it,  is  that  o^  finish,  ox  perfection, —  the 
bringing  of  a  thing  from  a  rude  or  unwrought  to  a  finish- 
ed state.  In  this,  as  well  as  in  the  primary  sense  of 
smoothing,  poHshing,  shaving,  it  resembles  the  Hebrew 
Kna.     Accompanying  it  we  have 

Ba-da-a^,  ('^"'s),  the  primary  sense  of  which  is  mani- 
festation, or  revealing,  bringing  from  an  invisible  state  ; 
hence  that  of  beginning,  and  creation,  as  though  it  were 
a  bringing  out  of  darkness  or  invisibility. 

Ba-ra-a^  C**"*^)?  the  Hebrew  word  itself  with  the  radi- 
cal idea  oi  sejjaration,  and  hence  o^  setting  free. 

Ja-ha-la  C-^aa),  a  purely  formative  word,  like  the 
Hebrew  '^2:\  It  signifies  to  shape,  or  fashion.  It  has 
the  same  plastic  sense  in  the  Syriac  ;  of  which  the  reader 
may  be  referred  to  a  proof  in  Romans  ix,  20,  where  the 
Peschito,  or  old  Syriac  version,  employs  it,  and  its  noun 
derivative,  for  the  Greek  ^Xatf/j-a — ■jrXao'ava — "  Shall  the 
thing  formed  say  to  him  who  formed  it,'^  etc.  Hebrew, 
Crabal,  (xalab  ;  Greek,  rXuipw  ;  Latin,  Sculpo,  Scalpo  ; 
Aug.,  Seidpture. 

Fa-ta-ra  ("it^s),  primary  sense  that  o^  opening,  burst- 
ing, coming  forth — fdit  aperuit.  Hence  it  is  a  word 
of  birtJij  or  generation.     It  has  the  same  sense  in  the 


276         ARABIC  WORDS  OF  CREATIOK. 

Hebrew,  although,  in  that  language,  never  used  of  crea- 
tion. 

A-sa-ra  ("i®i<),  (Hebrew,  ion),  sense  of  linding. 
Hence  it  denotes  creation  from  the  opposite  aspect  of 
constructing^  or  putting  togeilier^  instead  of  separating 
from  a  previous  mass,  which  is  the  predominant  image 
in  other  words. 

Da-ra-a"  ('<"^''),  to  send  fortli  —  sparsit.  Connected 
with  the  Hebrew  >Tit,  and  Latin  Sero.  The  creative 
idea  is  involved  in  that  of  semination  and  growth, 

Qa-na  (^sp),  to  get  —  acquire — jjossess.  We  have 
elsewhere  remarked  upon  this  word  as  having  in  Hebrew 
the  sense  of  generation,  and  so  of  creation,  examples  of 
Avhich  may  be  found  Genesis  iv,  1,  xiv,  19,  22,  Psalm 
cxxxix,  13,  Proverbs  viii,  22.  Compare  the  order  of 
ideas  in  our  Saxon  get  —  he-get  —  he-gotten. 

Ta-na  {Ta-ya-nd),  (T^^)?  the  plastic  sense  —  to  form, 
or  fashion  (of  earth.) 

La-ha  (JLa-wa-liai),  nxV,  or  niV,  the  sense  of  sliining 

—  sliining  vapor.  A  noun  from  it  is  used  to  denote  the 
mirage,  or  the  appearance  of  seas  or  lakes  in  the  desert, 

—  thus  giving  us  the  idea  of  order  and  beauty  standing 
forth  from  waste  and  desolation. 

Should  any  one  say  that  such  sensible  images  are  all 
that  could  be  expected  in  the  early  age  of  the  world,  or 
that  language  is  thus  necessarily  sensuous,  we  can  admit 
the  view  without  the  least  hesitation.  Language  traced 
to  its  roots  is  ever  sensuous,  and  must  be  so,  not  because 
it  is  addressed  to  the  early  men,  but  to  all  men,  as  men, 
who  can  never  do  without  sensuous  images  in  their 
thoughts.  It  was  so,  doubtless,  in  the  early  speech,  but 
let  it  be  remembered  that  when  the  wters  of  the  Bible 


THE   NON-APPARENTIA.  277 

came  to  use  a  language  which  philosophy  bad  vastly  im- 
proved, (if  it  was  an  improvement,)  and  carried  as  far 
as  possible  out  of  the  sensuous  into  the  abstract,  or  seem- 
ingly abstract,  they  still  adhered  to  the  old  style,  repre- 
senting creation  as  a  building,  a  putting  together,  o,  fram- 
ing of  ivorlds  or  ages,  and,  in  the  most  supersensual  (or 
rather  least  sensuous)  conception  they  ventured  to  em- 
ploy, a  bringing  forth  of  the  phenomenal,  not  from  abso- 
lute not  being  (^m  ovtwv)  but  from  the  non  appearing 
(fx'<7  ij3aivoy./vwv) — the  7ion  apparentibus,*  as  Calvin  truly 
renders  it.  "We  admit  the  necessity  of  language,  and 
we  only  ask  those  who  make  the  objection  to  give  it  all 
its  force.  We  understand,  notionally  and  logically,  the 
proposition,  zvhat  is,  once  was  not.  We  can  carry  it 
thus  notionally  and  logically  to  the  extreme  negation  of 
all  sense  conception,  but  what  have  we  left  but  a  blank 
in  thought,  unless  the  sense  reacts,  and  images  a  dark 
nihility,  as,  in  some  way,  the  material  ex  quo,  out  of 
which  all  things  in  some  way  came  ?  We  may,  at  any 
time,  if  we  please,  have  this  blank  thought  as  a  refuge 
against  that  apprehension  of  matter's  eternity  which 
some  would  regard  as  the  sum  of  all  heresy,  and  which 
the  author  himself  holds  to  be  atheistical.     But  when  we 

*  We  have  already  referred  to  one  of  Professor  Dana's  exegetical  criti- 
cisms oa  the  word  beginning.  There  is  another  on  which  he  ventures  in 
respect  to  tlie  view  taken  of  Hebrews  xi,  3.  He  calls  the  reading,  and  the 
version,  which  would  be  in  accordance  with  this  sense,  "a  liberty  taken 
with  the  sacred  text.'"  Mr.  Lord  does  the  same  thing,  but  as  he  puts  it 
on  the  ground  of  sheer  falsifying,  and  without  the  least  shadow  of  refuta- 
tion, we  can  not  regard  him  or  his  charge  as  worthy  of  any  notice.  When 
any  man  of  any  real  weight  as  a  Biblical  scholar  makes  the  objection,  our 
brief  defence  would  be,  that  a  view  sanctioned  by  the  two  oldest  versions, 
the  Latin  and  the  Syriac,  brought  out  by  Calvin,  and  sustained  by  the  best 
modern  German  authorities,  is  so  far  from  being  a  "  liberty  taken  with  the 
sacred  text,"  that  it  has  the  best  of  all  critical  arguments  in  its  support, 


278  LIVING   THOUGHT   OF  THE   LIVING   GOD. 

have  reached  such  an  extremely  rarefied,  or  rather  nihil- 
ified  negative,  what  is  it,  for  strength  and  vividness,  and 
power  of  religious  emotion,  as  compared  with  the  concep- 
tions aroused  by  the  radical  images  of  these  Arabic  and 
Hebrew  words  ?  If  God  has  made  the  revelation  in  this 
manner  by  way  of  "  accommodation"  to  us,  why  should 
we  not  be  accommodated  by  it  ?  We  may  seek  to  get 
above  them  ;  we  may,  in  so  doing,  involve  ourselves  in 
any  amount  of  darkness  under  the  name  of  the  profound ; 
and  it  will  not  do  us  much  hurt,  perhaps,  unless  it  obscures 
the  impression  of  those  accommodating  images  with  which 
He  who  made  the  human  soul  as  well  as  the  physical 
worlds  has  so  graciously  furnished  us.  When  this  is  the 
case,  it  may  be  found  that  we  have  gained  dimness  for 
brightness,  vacuity  for  fullness,  a  dead  gnosticism  for 
living  thought, —  that  living  thought  of  the  Living  God 
which  Revelation  aims  to  give  us,  as  something  vastly 
more  glorious  than  any  mere  knowledge  whether  it  take 
to  itself  the  ancient  form  of  a  philosophical  pantheism,  or 
the  more  modern  guise  of  an  arid  scientific  theism. 

Should  the  question  be  put  in  this  form — What  He- 
brew word  would  Moses  have  probably  employed,  had 
he  actually  wished  to  convey  this  idea  of  an  absolute  cre- 
ation of  matter  from  previous  nonentity,  or  of  force, 
activity,  and  motion*  from  a  previous  negation  of  all  these 
ideas  ?  We  may  answer,  that  it  would  most  likely  have 
been  this  word  hara.  This,  however,  would  not  be  on 
the  ground  that  such  is  the  radical  idea  of  the  word,  but 
because  it  would  come  as  near  to  it  as  any  others  of  the 

*  We  have  no  words  that  are  strictly  the  uegationa  of  these.  ImmohU- 
ity  and  re$t  are  not  the  negation  but  the  ojiposilion,  or  resistance,  oi activ- 
ity and  motion. 


THE   ABSOLUTE   BEGINNING.  279 

formative  class,  and  its  use  for  something  new  and  before 
unseen  (although  without  any  recognition  of  the  meta- 
physical idea)  would  make  it  yet  more  suitable.  Still, 
the  whole  decision  of  this  depends  on  the  context.  It  is 
purely  a  question  of  interpretation,  with  which  science 
has  nothing  to  do,  even  had  she  any  means  of  answering 
it.  It  is,  moreover,  altogether  distinct  from  that  other 
view  of  the  absolute  beginning,  at  some  time,  of  material 
existence,  as  matter  of  fact.  To  deny  that  is  atheism. 
But  whether  Moses  meant  such  absolute  bednnino:  of  all 
undivine  existence,  is  a  question  that  has  been  enter- 
tained by  the  best  men  in  the  Christian  church.  It  af- 
fects no  man's  orthodoxy,  or  reputation  for  orthodoxy. 
It  may  be  that  INIoses  took  in  all  of  material  being  as  far 
as  he  knew  it,  or  that  he  meant  to  teach,  and  was  in- 
spired to  teach,  the  general  truth  that  all  things  came 
from  God.  But  this  may  have  been  in  various  ways, 
and  for  various  purposes.  The  aim  may  have  been 
an  impression  of  the  Divine  power  and  greatness,  rather 
than  a  lesson  of  curious  knowledge.  The  accomplish- 
ment of  this  aim  might  have  been  attempted  in  the 
use  of  general  terms  universal  in  extent,  so  as  to  satisfy 
the  philosophical  state  of  mind,  but  comparatively  feeble 
in  respect  to  strength  and  vividness  of  emotion ;  or  it 
might  have  been  effected,  perhaps  better  effected,  by 
presenting,  for  such  a  purpose,  a  picture  partial  and 
temporal,  yet  most  graphic,  of  the  Divine  power  in  the 
building  of  the  visible  heavens  and  earth,  with  all  that  is 
visible  in  them,  regarded  rather  as  they  ajypear  than 
in  their  essence  or  essential  causality.  It  may  even  be 
conceded  that  if  Moses  had  been  interrogated,  as  one 
has  supposed,  he  would  have  said  that  he  meant  all  things, 


280  LUCIFERI,    OR   SOXS    OF   THE   MORNING. 

in  space  at  least ;  and  yet,  the  question  returns,  "VVliat 
is  the  fair  import  of  his  language,  and  how  does  it  au- 
thorize us  to  fix  any  metaphysical  notions  upon  his  pic  - 
torial  words  ? 

We  have  elsewhere  remarked,  that  it  could  not  have 
been  the  beginning  of  all  spiritual  being  below  the  Di- 
vine ;  for  angels,  "  Sons  of  God,"  "  Sons  of  the  Morn- 
ing," or  Lucife?-i,  are  recognized  as  being  in  existence 
■when  God  laid  the  foundations  of  the  earth.  Angehc 
tsxistence  implies  some  kind  of  dynamical  occupancy  of 
space,  which  it  is  very  hard  for  us  to  separate  from  some 
idea  of  the  material,  unless  we  ascribe  to  such  beings 
attributes  we  have  been  accustomed  to  think  of  as  spe- 
cially Divine.  But  be  that  as  it  may,  we  come  back  to 
the  first  verse  in  Genesis,  and  we  ask, —  What  does  it 
fairly  mean  according  to  the  conceptions  it  creates  in 
our  minds  ?  "  In  the  heginning  Crod  created  the  Hea- 
vens and  the  Earth.''''  Does  it  refer  to  something  ante- 
cedent to  all  that  is  mentioned  in  the  subsequent  verses, 
or  is  it,  in  fact,  a  title  or  caption  to  the  whole  account  ? 
30  that  the  Heavens  and  Earth  there  mentioned  are  the 
same  Pleavens  and  Earth  described  immediately  after- 
wards in  the  second  and  eighth  verses.  We  would  con- 
fess that  the  main  arguments  inclining  us  to  the  latter 
view,  arise  from  the  gi-eat  difficulties  (not  scientific,  but 
hermeneutical,)  connected  with  the  other.  In  the  first 
place,  there  is  no  intrinsic  evidence  that  the  first  verse 
is  thus  severed  from  the  others,  or  that  it  stands  by  itself 
denoting  a  period  of  distinct  and  antecedent  working, — 
much  less  a  period  so  remotely  antecedent  as  would  be 
required  for  a  scientific  hypothesis  commencing  with  the 
absolute  elimination  of  light.     This  would  be  our  -first 


I 


FIRST   VERSE   IN    GENESIS.  281 

argument.  Ifc  is  negative,  we  admit,  and  not  conclusive. 
The  opposite  view  has  most  respectable  advocates,  and 
was  held  by  some  of  the  Fathers.  It  would  not  be  at 
war  with  any  other  conclusions  we  have  deduced  re- 
specting the  indefinite  length  of  the  days.  That  inter- 
pretation is  entirely  independent  of  it,  and  may  be  main- 
tained, with  equal  force  and  fairness,  without  denying  that 
Moses  meant  the  absolute  principium,  or  expressing  anj 
opinion  about  it.  He  may  have  meant  some  ineffable 
antecedent  act ;  but  if  so,  then  it  might  be  very  fairly 
argued,  that  to  such  act  he  also  meant  that  the  word 
bara  should  be  specially,  if  not  exclusively,  applied. 
That  was  creation,  then ;  all  else  was  a  mere  arrange- 
ment of  what  had  been  created  in  the  beginning.  But 
other  uses  of  the  word,  not  only  throughout  the  Bible, 
but  in  this  very  account,  are  at  war  with  such  a  suppo- 
sition. There  were  creations  after  the  primordial  act, — 
creations,  beyond  all  doubt,  the  fashioning  or  organizing 
existing  materials  both  into  outward  form  and  internal 
constitution.  But  without  dwelling  farther  on  this,  we 
proceed  to  our  argument  — 

2d.  If  the  First  verse  means  a  creating  act  antece- 
dent to  all  organization,  then  its  words  Heaven  and  Earth 
can  not  be  taken  in  their  definite,  visible,  or  local  sense, 
as  they  are  afterward  employed,  but  must  be  regarded 
as  general  terms  for  the  first  matter  as  yet  undivided  and 
unformed.  Some  have  supposed  that  this  was  actually 
expressed  by  the  particle  mn,  which  was  understood  to 
denote  the  matter^  the  substance,  of  the  Heavens  and 
the  Earth.  The  best  Hebrew  sholars,  however,  reject 
any  such  notion,  regarding  this  little  word  as  simply  a 
sign  of  the   accusative  case,  or  rather  as  having  very 

24* 


282  HEBREW   WORD    FOR   MATTER. 

much  the  same  force  with  the  Greek  and  Latin  reflexive 
pronouns ;  so  that  £=i''>s»n  nx  and  pwn  nx  -woukl  be  the 
Heaven  itself^  or  the  very  Heavens^  and  the  very  Earth. 
We  would  not  attach  much  importance  either  way  to 
any  argument  drawn  from  the  use  of  this  particle,  but, 
thus  regarded,  it  would  favor  the  interpretation  which 
makes  the  Earth  and  Heavens  of  the  first  verse  the  same 
with  the  Earth  of  the  second,  and  the  Heavens  mention- 
ed in  the  eighth  below.  But  if  Moses  meant  the  origin- 
ation of  matter  per  se,  "  why  could  he  not  have  said  so"  ? 
We  use  the  language  of  an  objector,  which  is  applied  to 
another  purpose,  but  is  more  applicable  here.  If  it  be 
said  that  the  Hebrew  language  furnished  no  such  word 
as  matter  in  its  elementary  or  philosophical  sense,  ov  first 
matter  distinct  from  any  particular  forms  it  might  assvime, 
this  would  only  show  how  foreign  all  such  metaphysical 
or  elementary  conceptions  were  from  their  clear  practical 
•modes  of  thinking.*     When  something  like  the  idea  of 

*  The  Hebrew  had  roots  from  which  such  words  could  be  formed,  when- 
ever the  progress  of  speculative  thinking  might  make  them  necessary  for 
those  who  used  the  language.  We  have  already  refeiTed  to  the  plural  of 
■I3y,  the  word  for  dust  as  thus  employed,  Prov.  viii,  26,  [Six  Days  of  Cre- 
ation, p.  323,)  and  we  might  cite  another  that  would  geem  to  come  the 
nearest  to  such  an  idea  of  any  terms  in  the  Hebrew  Bible.  It  is  the  word 
S3^J>,  much  employed  by  the  Rabbinical  writers  to  denote  liubsfance, 
and  having  something  of  the  same  thought  in  a  few  places  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament, as  Genesis  ii,  23,  where  Adam  says  of  Eve,  according  to  the  com- 
mon rendering,  "This  is  bone  of  my  bone,"  but  it  may  be  translated,  sub- 
i-.tancc  of  my  substance.  We  might  suppose  this  idea  of  substance  to  come 
from  the  sense  bone,  so  frequent  elsewhere,  were  it  not  that  such  a  view 
would  be  out  of  harmony  with  the  spirit  of  the  remai'kable  expression, 
Exod.  xxiv,  10,  where  it  is  used  to  denote  the  very  substance,  or  supposed 
substance,  of  the  Heavens  themselves,  (t^"i>3ffln  tSisy,)  ''the  very  sub- 
stance of  the  Heaven  in  its  punty."  This  would  rather  lead  us  to  refer 
such  use  of  the  word  to  the  primary  idea  of  potccr  or  strcufcth,  which  be- 
longs to  the  root  as  a  verb.    It  wonld  take  us  directly  and  naturally  to 


MOSES  UNDOUBTEDLY  ORTHODOX.        283 

first  existence  from  nonentity  is  to  be  expressed,  which 
wc  think  is  intended,  Isaiah  xlviii,  13,  then  we  have  the 
bold  personifications  of  poetry,  so  much  more  eflective 
than  any  prose  statement  that  Avould  have  required  the 
other  kind  of  Language.  "  I  call  to  them,  tJiey  stand  up 
together.^^ 

No  doubt  Moses  was  as  orthodox  here  as  any  of  us, 
but  did  he  think  of  primal  matter  per  se  ?  That  is  the 
question.  Did  it  come  within  the  plan  of  his  sublime  de- 
scription ?  It  is  said,  with  some  apparent  force,  that  if 
not  taught  here,  this  great  truth  of  first  origin  is  wanting 
in  the  Bible.  That  we  think  is  an  error.  There  are 
other  places  where  it  would  appear  to  be  expressed,  such 
as  the  one  just  referred  to  in  Isaiah,  and  still  more  clearly 
in  John  i,  3,  which  seems  to  go  farther  back  in  time, 
and  to  be  more  universal  both  in  space  and  height,  than 
the  account  given  by  Moses.  And  yet  if  it  were  not 
taught  in  the  Scriptures,  it  would  detract  nothing  from 
the  evidence  of  their  inspiration  or  their  dignity.  The 
being  of  a  God  is  not  taught,  as  a  direct  lesson,  in  the 
Bible.  It  is  everywhere  assumed,  not  as  something 
which  might  be  deduced  from  any  scientific  search  into 
nature,  but  as  a  thought  which  the  human  soul  has  no 
right  to  be  without,  even  for  a  moment.  It  can  not  be 
innocently  destitute  of  it,  that  is,  innocently  atheistical, 

that  notion  oi  force,  resistance,  and  so,  o^hardriess,  v^hich  is  the  ultimate 
of  all  our  thinking  about  matter.  The  same  word  seems  to  be  used  of  the 
primal  matter,  or  primal  causal  energy  (whatever  that  may  be)  of  the  hu- 
man organism,  in  the  passage  before  quoted  from  Psalm  cxsxix,  14,  "My 
substance  was  not  hid  from  Thee  when  I  was  made  in  secret  and  curiously 
wrought  in  the  lowest  parts  of  the  earth."  The  thought  is,  that  this  primal 
matter,  or  primal  force,  is  "naked  and  laid  bare  to  Him  with  whom  no 
creation  is  invisible,"  (xTiVij  CtCpavi)?,  Heb.  iv,  13,)— thereby  implying 
how  obscure  it  is,  and  difficult  of  conception,  to  the  finite  human  mind. 


28-i    ALL  WORLDS  IN  TIME — ALL  WORLDS  IN  SPACE. 

during  the  time  that  would  be  necessary  for  drawing  a 
conclusion  from  physical  facts,  or  outward  testimony  of 
any  kind.  The  same  may  be  said  of  the  dependence  of 
the  universe  on  God,  whether  that  universe  be  gi'eat  or 
small ;  for  the  amount  of  space  and  time  here  makes  no 
difference.  It  was,  therefore,  a  sufficient  design  in  Ge- 
nesis to  give  us  that  which  must  ever  be  to  us  the  most 
glorious  example  of  God's  woi-king,  namely,  the  kfisis,  or 
building  of  our  own  earth  and  the  near  visible  heavens 
above  it.  That  all  things  else,  known  or  unknown,  came 
from  the- same  hand,  and  this  in  respect  to  time  as  well 
as  space,  would  be,  not  so  much  an  inference,  as  a  thought 
inseparably  connected  with  it,  and  so,  we  might  say,  re- 
vealed  in  it.  He  who  made  us,  made  all  things ;  "  and 
without  him  was  there  nothing  made  that  was  made." 

But  let  us  look  at  the  objection  in  another'  form.  It 
regards  it  as  a  derogation  from  the  dignity  of  revelation, 
if  Moses,  in  his  graphic  picture,  is  not  supposed  to  begin 
with  the  absolute  principium  before  which  time  was  not. 
But  there  would  seem  to  be  a  ready  answer  to  this  by 
putting  a  precisely  similar  question.  If  all  things  in 
time,  why  not  all  things  in  space  ?  Why  not  all  worlds 
as  well  as  all  ages, —  that  is,  all  aeons  or  olams  in  one 
sense  as  well  as  in  the  other.  If  it  be  said  that  the  one 
is  to  bo  inferred  from  the  words  Heaven  and  Earth ,  how- 
ever partial  the  space  knowledge  or  conception  with 
which  these  words  were  connected  in  the  mind  of  Moses, 
then  we  also  say  that  by  a  like  inference  we  mount  up 
above  the  particular  times  presented  in  his  creative  pic- 
ture ;  although,  whether  we  shall  gain  anything  by  so 
doing,  either  in  clearness  of  thought,  or  vividness  of  emo- 
tion, may  be  a  very  serious  question. 


FIRST    VERSE   m   GENESIS.  285 

It  maj  be  said  that  the  world  had  not  then  science 
enough  to  have  understood  the  language  necessary  for 
such  a  space  revelation,  in  the  attempt  to  convej  anytWn^ 
like  an  adequate  conception.     That  maj  be.     But  are 
we  sure  that  the  world  had  science  enough  then,  or  has 
science  enough  now,  or  ever  will  have  science  enough  to 
apprehend  adequately  the  ineffable  mystery  of  primordial 
formation  ?    The  fact  may  be  inferred  from  an  account 
necessarily  partial  so  far  as  we  can  make  it  matter  of 
conception  ;  but  did  such  primordial  birth  of  entities,  as 
entities,  form  a  designed  part  of  Moses'  vivid  picture  ? 
Iks  IS  the  question,  and  this  brings  us  to  another  view 
ot  the  subject.     We  say,  then  — 

3dly.  The  beginning,  of  which  the  writer  of  Genesis  i 
speaks  m  the  first  verse,  must  have  been  a  beginnino-  on 
this  earth,  the  very  earth  we  now  inhabit;  and  thfs  is 
mamtamed  because  the  earth,  or  the  waters  of  the  earth 
was  the  place  of  the  first  distinct  act  mentioned  in  the 
account.     "  The  earth  was  without  form  and  void  *  Tor 
waste^  and  desolate)  and  darkness  was  on  the  face  of  the 
deep.       Here  we  have  the  opening  of  this  grand  drama 
with  Its  SIX  subhme  acts.     It  is  the  date  and  the  locus 
of  the  first  special  energy-we  mean  the  first  special 
energy  recorded.     "  And  the  Spirit  of  God  brooded  on 
the  waters.       Now,  if  by  the  word  create,  in  the  first 
verse  Moses  had  meant  an  act,  or  acts,  prior  to  this,  we 
think  he  would  have  used  the  same  language  ;  for  we 
may  regard  it  as  an  established  Bible  truth,  that  all  cre- 
ative acts,  and  creative  agency,  are  through  the  Spirit 


286  LIGHT   OLDER   THAN   AYATER. 

and  the  Word.  (Vide  John  i,  2,  Coloss.  i,  16.)  But 
for  such  antecedent  act,  if  Moses  meant  to  set  it  forth, 
there  is  no  mention  of  any  such  agency  of  the  Spirit ; 
there  is  no  such  going  forth  of  the  Word.  Would  the 
formula,  so  emphatic  and  constant  afterward,  have  heen 
omitted  in  the  great  primordial  scene,  if  the  writer  really 
meant  to  make  it  part  of  his  description  ?  This  "  brood- 
ing on  the  waters,"  then,  is  the  first  creative  act,  if  not 
of  the  universal  origination,  at  least  among  the  acts  pic- 
tured, and  meant  to  be  pictured,  by  Moses.  If  so,  then 
this  was  the  beginning,  not  of  all  things  absolutely,  but 
of  the  Mosaic  account. 

4th.  In  the  universal  creation,  it  is  not  easy  for  us  to 
conceive,  and  still  less  easy  to  believe,  that  the  absolute 
origination  of  light  was  later  than  the  constitution  of  the 
water.  It  is  not  an  objection  of  science,  but  of  our  com- 
mon thinking.  Light,  in  itself,  must  have  been  before 
the  grosser  fluid.  But  we  would  not  depend  upon  this 
alone.  Scripture  confirms  the  thought  that  it  must  have 
been  the  oldest  of  material  manifestations,  if  it  is  material 
at  all.  We  refer  to  passages  already  quoted,  which  re- 
present it  as  the  raiment  and  dwelling  place  of  Deity, — 
language  which,  for  reasons  already  given,  we  can  not 
regard  as  simply  figurative.  Again  —  the  Luciferi*  or 
light  bearing  "  Sons  of  the  Morning,"  or  "  Morning 
Stars,"  must  have  been  light,  or  must  have  had  light, 

*  In  these  Luciferi  there  is  a  reference,  doubtless,  to  AugcHc  or  super- 
human beings.  But  the  old  belief  did  also  connect  them  wiih  the  stars  as 
their  abod^  or  as  their  luminous  representatives.  We  have  alluded  to 
t!iis  in  the  other  volume.  Six  Dajjs  of  Creation,  pp.  349,  350,  to  which  the 
reader  is  referred.  Wliether  this  old  belief,  in  the  days  of  Job,  be  fanciful 
or  not,  it  shows  the  idea  that  stars  really  existed  before  the  creation  of  the 
earth,  and  that  is  a  just  argument  in  the  interpretation  of  the  Mosaic  ac- 
count 


IN    GENESIS,   WATER   BEFORE   THE   LIGHT.         287 

wlien  they  "  shouted  for  joy  and  sang  together,"  at  the 
laying  of  earth's  corner  stone.  The  language  may  be 
poetical,  but  ifc  is  very  significant.  It  is  inconsistent 
with  the  idea  of  a  universe  shrouded  in  "  primeval  dark- 
ness," to^use  our  critic's  language.  Such  darkness,  did, 
indeed,  rest  on  the  earth  when  this  ancient  music  of  the 
spheres  was  heard,  but  there  must  have  been  morning 
somewhere  sv  To7g  iitov^avloig,  "  in  the  Heavenly  Places," 
or,  rather,  as  the  word  means,  the  Super-celestial  Places. 
When  we  come,  however,  to  consider  the  particular  chro- 
nology of  the  Mosaic  creation,  and  the  picture  of  events 
as  they  took  place  on  our  earth,  nothing  can  be  more 
clear  than  that,  if  it  observes  any  order  of  ideas,  the  wa- 
ters, and  an  earth  covered  with  waters,  were  before  the 
light  there  mentioned.  It  could  not,  therefore,  have  been 
the  primordial  light  of  the  universe,  but  only  its  first  shin- 
ing on  that  dark,  and  undivided,  and  therefore  forinless 
waste  of  waters.  We  see  not  how  the  conclusion  can  be 
avoided.  If  light  is  earlier  than  water,  then  the  argu- 
ment deduced  from  it  respecting  the  absolute  principium 
being  intended  in  the  INIosaic  account  utterly  fails  ;  and 
this  would  equally  be  the  case  whether  light  is  regarded 
as  a  substance  or  an  effect.* 

*The  primordial  light  must  have  been  before  the  waters.  Such  "is  the 
argument  of  Professor  Dana,  p.  114,  January  number  of  Andover  Biblio- 
theca  Sacra.  To  be  sure,  he  denies  that  light  is  an  "independent  entity." 
"  It  is  a  result,"  he  says,  "  of  chemical  change,"  or  "  produced  by  molecu- 
lar disturbance."  Here  he  thinks  he  has  actually  seized  the  mystery. 
Light  is  "  molecular  action."  Hence,  he  argues  very  sagely,  light  being 
molecular  action,  matter  vrithout  such  molecular  action  veould  not  be  light 
— that  is,  it  would  be  dark;  and  so,  also,  having  no  heat,  it  would  be  cold 
and  dead.  "  Let  it  be  endowed,  then,  with  intense  attraction  (moderate 
attraction  it  seems  would  not  do)  and  it  would  produce  light  as  the  first 
effect  of  the  mutual  action  begun."  "  Thus  science,  in  its  latest  develop- 
ments, declares  as  distinctly  as  the  Bible,  ou  the  first  day  light  was." 


288  IS   LIGHT  AN   INDEPENDENT  ENTITY  ? 

5tli.  In  the  Mosaic  narrative  the  Earth  is  created  before 
the  Heaven.     Such,  also,  is  the  representation  in  other 

Here  we  have  again  the  curious  paralleHsm  ;  ouly  science,  as  usual,  holds 
tlie  most  prominent  place.  It  is  not  behind  Moses  in  anything.  It  talks 
"  as  distinctly"  as  the  Divine  revelation  which  would  have  been  wholly 
unnecessary  had  it  been  delayed  until  these  "  latest  developments." 

Such  a  scientific  display  may  wonderfully  strengthen  the  faith  of  certain 
religionists  who  know  as  little  of  science  as  they  do  of  the  Bible  ;  but  need 
the  intelligent  reader  be  told  that  there  is  really  no  light  in  it  ?  The  "  lat- 
est developments"  are  yet  at  a  vast  distance  from  the  real  mystery.  They 
do  not  tell  us  "where  light  dwelleth ;"  they  can  not  " show  us  the  path  to 
its  house."  Boast  as  they  may,  the  challenge  in  Job  is  yet  unanswered. 
The  philosophy  of  a  Humboldt  frankly  admits  this ;  the  science  of  other 
men  resents  the  assertion,  as  though  it  were  an  insulting  derogation  h-om 
the  claims  of  the  second  "  revelation." 

Light,  then,  is  an  effect — an  effect  of  some  condition  of  material  sub- 
stance. This  is  all  that  the  Professor's  fine  words  amount  to.  We  would 
ask,  in  the  first  place,  does  he  mean  the  sensation  to  which  there  is  fre- 
quently given  this  name,  or  with  which  it  is  so  often  confounded  ?  Light, 
in  that  sense,  is  a  mixed  product,  an  outward  material  working  in  some 
kind  of  combination  with  an  inward  sensorium,  or  sensorialaction.  But 
no  one  ever  expressed  that  more  clearly  than  Aristotle  did  two  thousand 
years  ago  in  his  treatise  Ils^i  Yv)(rii.  "  The  latest  developments"  have 
ceataiuly  done  nothing  in  that  direction,  unless  something  should  result 
from  the  clairvoyant  experiments  of  Dr.  Hare  and  the  Mesmerisers.  But 
light  is  an  ej/cct.  What  then?  An  e/fcci  is  an  out-icoiking ;  and  this  out- 
working is  all  that  science  can  see.  It  is  an  out-working  conditioned  on  a 
certain  state  of  matter,  and  this  state  of  matter  is  another  out- working  con- 
ditioned on  another  state,  and  so  on  up  to  the  primal  material  entity.  So, 
also,  is  water  an  effect.  It  is  conditioned  on  a  certain  combination  of  oxy- 
gen and  hydrogen.  These,  too,  may  be  effects — each  of  them — and  their 
conditioning  forces  may  be  effects,  and  so  on,  effects  of  effects,  as  far  as 
science  can  trace,  should  she  rub  her  glasses  to  the  utmost.  She  has  for 
some  time  been  engaged  in  splitting  up  matter  into  any  number  of  "  inde- 
pendent entities,"  though  all  along  suspecting  that  she  is  in  the  wrong  di- 
rection. She  may  be  near  tlie  other  leg  of  the  hyperbola  of  i)rogress,  where 
it  curves  round  again  to  the  ideas  of  simplicity  and  unity.  She  niaj-,  per- 
haps, in  time,  discover  the  first  matter.  But  as  far  as  we  can  secit  is  ever 
an  effect.  It  is,  all  along,  a  doing,  an  activiti/,  (for  that  is  all  that  science 
has  ever  seen  and  therefore  all  she]  can  infer)  until  we  get  up  to  this 
first  matter,  and  what  that  is  but  a  doing,  an  aclivily  still,  we  caa  not 
tell.  Nothing,  then,  is  gained  by  this.  We  might  as  well  take  light  for 
an  entity,  as  any  of  the  material  states  in  which  it  is  said  to  be  coudi- 


ANCIENT   SCIENTIFIC   CONVENTIONS.  289 

parts  of  the  Bible — "  Who  formed  the  Earth  and  stretch- 
ed out  the  Heavens  over  them."     "  To  the  Lord  belong 

tioned,  even  if  science  liiiew  far  more  tlian  she  does  know,  or  ever  will 
know,  about  these  conditioning  causalities.  Instead  of  knowing  "  wliere 
light  dwelleth,"  either  as  an  entity,  or  au  effect,  our  scientific  Professor 
can  tell  us  notliing  about  the  material  condition  even  of  its  secondary  mo- 
difications, or  the  molecular  state  on  which  depend  varieties  of  color. 
He  may  use  as  much  technical  language  as  he  pleases,  but  it  all  comes  out 
iu  this  bald,  barren  proposition, — a  certain  atomic  or  molecular  condition  is 
the  ground  for  the  reflection  of  a  certain  color  in  distinction  from  any  other. 
Very  likely.  We  could  almost  have  told  that  a  priori.  The  Professor  may 
be  safely  defied  to  tell  what  that  molecular  condition  is  which  makes  the 
paper  ou  which  he  writ  s  of  one  color,  and  the  ink  he  uses,  of  another.  He 
can  no  more  tell  us  how  one  hair  is  black  or  white,  tlian  he  can  make  one 
hair  black  or  white. 

Again,  he  says,  the  light  is  conditioned  on  the  chemical  aiHnities  of  the 
molecules ;  but  wlio  knows  if  it  may  not  be  the  other  way,  the  affinities  of 
the  molecules  conditioned  on  the  light  ?  Chemical  afiinity  may  be  condi- 
tioned ou  the  presence  of  a  substance  which  is  the  ground  both  of  the  affin- 
ity and  the  ultimate  visibility  ;  and  this  conditioning  substance  we  may  call 
light,  although  it  is  invisible  to  science,  which  cau  only  see  results,  fjfccts, 
— out-workings,  even  of  light  itself.  On  iuch  a  view,  it  would  be  very 
much  a  question  of  naming.  We  may  stop  at  any  one  manifestation,  or 
we  may  call  everything  an  effect,  and  deny  it  the  name  of  an  entity,  until 
we  mount  up,  actually  or  iu  thought,  to  the  first  matter,  or  the  first  activity/, 
the  one  universal  material  substance  of  the  aniver«e.  Is  everything  else 
a  manifestation  of  this  primal  matter  or  primal  activity?  For  we  must  saj- 
for  ourselves,  we  find  it  very  difficult  to  conceive  of  it  in  any  other  way. 
To  such  a  question  no  science  can  say  Yes  or  No.  Are  there  one,  or  two, 
or  more  [first  material  principles?  The  discussion  of  this  question  com- 
menced in  the  first  Ionic  Scientific  Convention  of  which  Thales  was  first 
President;  and  we  must  say  that  the  meeting  of  1856,  which  lately  took 
place  in  tlie  city  of  Albany,  had  not  yet  arrived  in  sight  of  a  decision.  The 
modern  gathering,  liad,  doubtless,  a  vastly  greater  array  of  facts,  and  those 
facts,  too,  arranged  and  classified  in  a  vastly  more  scientific  order.  They, 
therefore,  had  a  perfect  right,  which  right  they  fully  exercised,  to  talk 
much  more  of  progress,  and  blow  a  louder  trumpet ;  but  iu  regard  to  these 
first  facts  they  were  pretty  mucli  on  a  par  with  their  bretliren  of  the  olden 
time.  And  so  it  is  even  now.  Our  scientific  Professor,  with  all  his  talk 
of  molecules,  cau  tell  us  no  more  about  these  primal  harmonies  of  matter 
and  the  universe,  than  the  blind  player  on  the  street  organ  ;  he  knows  no 
more  than  the  child  "  where  light  dwelleth,  or  what  is  tlie  way  to  its 
house" — we  mean  in  the  sense  of  this  Bible  queiy.     He  is  as  isnorant  here 


290  EARTH  MADE   BEFORE   THE  HEAVENS. 

the  foundations  (the  columns  of  the  earth)  and  he  hath 
set  the  tehel  (the  risible  round  mundus  or  sky,)  over 
them." — 1  Sam.  ii,  8.  This  might  be  called  poetical 
imagery  ;  but  there  can  be  no  doubt  of  its  having  its  ori- 
gin in  the  prose  description  of  Moses.  After  the  general 
title,  the  first  work  is  the  earth,  and  on  the  earth.  Then 
we  have  the  making  of  the  firmament  above  the  waters. 
This  firmament  is  called  the  Heaven.  That  is  its  name, 
and  this  naming  is  followed  throughout  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. It  is  conclusive  as  to  what  is  meant  in  these 
poetical  expressions.  What  is  of  still  more  importance, 
it  determines  the  manner  in  which  other  Hebrew  writers, 
whether  historical,  didactic,  or  poetical,  interpreted  the 
Mosaic  language.  The  order  is  most  significant  and  un- 
mistakable, if  we  will  only  view  it  from  the  right  stand 
point — The  Earth  —  The  Firmament,   or    Sky, —  The 

as  on  the  questions,  whether  what  ho  calls  gravitation  is  the  finality  of  phy- 
sical action,  or  the  terms  employed  in  resi>ect  to  it  are  the  finality  of  sci- 
entific language  any  more  than  vortices  and  epicycles ; — although  he  was  so 
absurdly  indignant  against  "the  mind"  that  would  place  them  in  any 
sense,  and  for  any  purpose,  in  the  same  category. 

We  are  not  derogating  at  all  from  the  true  dignity  of  science,  when  we 
thus  call  to  account  those  who  would  injure  her  by  unmeaning  claims. 
This  swelling  talk  has  too  long  been  addressed  to  the  easy  popular  think- 
ing, and  its  correction  is  demanded,  not  only  in  deference  to  higher  ideas, 
but  as  a  service  to  science  itself.  But  to  return  to  our  starting  point — the 
nature  of  flight  has  really  nothing  to  do  with  this  discussion.  Be  it  an  ef- 
fect, an  outworking,  a  conditioned  state  of  matter,  an  activity,  an  entity, 
an  independent  substance,  or  anything  else  about  which  a  logomachy  may 
be  started,  still  the  real  question  remains  the  same.  Was  the  light  men- 
tioned by  Moses  the  beginning  of  light,  the  first  manifestation  of  light,  if 
you  choose,  before  which  light  never  had  been  during  an  cuilless  ante-past 
eternity,  or  was  it  the  first  light,  making  the  first  morning,  on  earth's  dark 
waters  i  This  is  the  question.  Whichever  way  decided,  it  is  one  solely 
of  interpretation.  Science  has  nothing  to  do  with  it.  No  "  revelation" 
she  can  make  can  herein  contradict  Moses.  No  gabble  of  any  of  her  vota- 
ries about  "affinities  nnd  molecules,"  can  ever  confii-m  him. 


ORDER   OF   THE    MOSAIC   PICTURE.  291 

Heavenly  bodies  appearing  therein.  Wliatever  changes 
this  disturbs  the  -whole  harmony  of  the  narrative.  It 
makes  the  picture  full  of  distortions.  Now  such  an  order 
of  events  is  inconsistent  with  the  supposition  that  Moses 
meant  to  set  forth,  in  the  first  verse,  an  antecedent  work- 
ing in  which  the  Heaven  (in  that  case  necessarily  the 
astronomical  heaven  with  all  its  hosts)  was  before  the 
Earth.  It  will  still  less  agree  with  the  scientific  repre- 
sentation that  expands  the  Mosaic  sky  into  nebular  rings. 
It  is,  however,  in  admirable  harmony  with  the  view  that 
regards  the  work  of  the  Fourth  day,  not  as  the  absolute 
making  (from  nonentity)  of  the  then  new  matter  of  the 
Heavenly  luminaries,  but  the  making*  them  to  be  lumi- 
naries (nmKtt)  in  that  clear  firmament,  sky,  or  heaven, 
which  now,  through  some  causality  unknown  to  us,  and 
not  revealed  to  us,  is  prepared  for  their  visibility,  or  as 
the  locus  in  which  they  appear.  How  the  idea  of  the 
astronomical  Heavens  afterwards  came  in,  or  the  Heaven 
of  Heavens,  has  been  elsewhere  shown. 

This  Jewish  idea,  or,  as  we  may  rather  call  it,  the  an- 
cient idea,  of  the  Earth  and  Heavens,  or  sky  around  it, 
as  forming  the  Tellurian  mundus,  is  found  in  various  parts 
of  the  Bible,  and  almost  always  presented  in  the  same 
way.  The  Earth  is  the  main  thing  in  the  picture.  It 
is  the  foundation,  and  the  Heaven  is  built  around  it. 
The  latter,  is,  in  fact,  a  part  of  the  Earth,  having  its 
origin  from  it,  and  its  existence  dependent  upon  it. 
When  the  Earth  departs,  the  Heavens  depart,  or  are 

*  If  the  name  making  can  be  g:iven  to  any  organization  short  of  the  first 
matter  of  which  they  are  composed,  or  its  absolute  origuation,  then  it  may 
be  given  to  such  Hght-producing  arrangement,  or  constitution,  as  well  as 
to  any  other.  Every  study  we  can  give  the  language  and  the  context  con- 
firms this  view. 


292  THE  HEAVENS  AND  THE  EAKTH.  2  PETER,  III,  5. 

*'  rolled  together  as  a  scroll."  So  St.  Peter  speaks  of 
the  Heavens  and  Earth  of  old,  which  arose  from  the  water 
and  had  their  consistence  through  and  from  the  water,* 
and  the  Earth  and  Heaven  that  are  now  reserved  for 
the  judgment  of  the  fire.  In  that  great  physical  catas- 
trophe "  the  heavens  shall  pass  away,"  the  atmosphere 
be  destroyed  "  by  fervent  heat,"  the  sky  dissolved,  the 
luminaries  therein  put  out,  and  darkness  come  again 
over  Avhatever  may  be  left  of  the  charred  and  blackened 
rsarth.  We  are  not  prepared  to  interpret  Scripture  on 
*i:hese  points  till  we  come  back  to  this  old  conception. 
And  it  was  a  true  conception.  This  sky  above  our  heads, 
-and  the  luminous  points  that  appear  in  it,  are  truly  Tel- 
.lurian.f  The  glorious  sight  would  not  exist  for  a  world 
wrapped  in  rings  and  belts  of  darkness.  It  is  the  stars 
as  they  appear  in  our  firmament,  as  they  are  pictured  in 
our  raJcia.  They  come  from  the  far  off  "  depths  of 
space,"  these  luminous  points  — 

However  unequal  their  respective  journies,  with  equal 
radii  do  they  appear  through  Earth's  revealing  sky-light 
dome.  They  fall  upon  the  blue  Tellurian  eye-ball  very 
much  as  the  Tellurian  images  themselves  strike  upon  the 
aqueous  firmament  of  the  human  eye,  whence  they  are 

*  2  Peter  iii,  5.  The  best  rendering  of  this  verse  is  that  which  regards 
i^  VOaroS  as  implied  in  (he  first  clause,  or  as  belonging  as  much  to  the 
first  clause  at  to  the  second  ;  so  that  it  would  read  "the  Heavens  of  old 
and  the  Earth  were  of  water,"  ov  from  u-alcr,  which  was  the  old  doctrine 
of  Thales,  derived  probably  from  Moses. 

t  We  use  this  word  here  from  necessity.  T'cllus,  in  distinction  from 
Terra,  denotes  the  world  earth,  or  the  earth  as  a  world,  or  the  centre  oi'  a 
world.  It  is,  therefore,  the  only  word  that  will  take  in  what  Moses  means 
by  the  "Earth  and  the  Heaven" — the  latter  being  included  in  the  idea  of 
the  same  world. 


eavid's  thought  of  the  heavens.         293 

represented  on  that  still  more  central  retma,  in  which, 
and  through  which,  each  secluded  soul  sees  all  it  ever 
sees  of  outward  mundane  things.  What  lies  beyond  in 
the  distant  regions  whence  these  appearances  come,  is 
another  question,  which  we  answer  more  or  less  perfectly, 
or  rather,  more  or  less  imperfectly,  according  to  our  sci- 
ence. The  ancients  may  have  known  much  or  little  about 
them,  but  it  would  not  change  the  reality,  the  real  ap- 
pearance^ or  the  language.  They  could  speculate  as 
well  as  we.  Our  science  has  given  us  no  advantage  in 
this  respect.  They  had  theories,  some  of  them,  even 
about  an  "  infinity  of  worlds."  There  was  nothing  to 
prevent  the  Jewish  mind  taking  the  same  direction. 
David,  musing  on  the  Heavens,  may  have  had,  and  we 
sometimes  think  he  did  have,  some  such  thought  of  im- 
mense existences,  or  immense  fields  of  being,  lying  be- 
hind those  luminous  points,  or  that  luminous  picture  which 
he  describes  as  the  embroidered  work  of  God's  fingers. 
Something  arose  in  his  mind  which  sunk  man' into  insig- 
nificance, and  from  which  the  Seer  does  not  recover  him- 
self until  he  comes  back  to  the  earth,  and  finds  relief 
in  the  contemplation  of  man  as  lord  of  all  below  the  skies, 
placed  in  dominion  over  all  terrestrial  animation.  But 
science  has  changed  all  that,  it  may  be  said.  All  our 
theological  views,  says  one,  must  be  modified  in  conse- 
quence of  the  modern  discoveries  in  astronomy.  Not  at 
all — we  reply.  Our  earth  is  still  the  same  secluded 
place  in  the  universe  that  it  was  in  the  time  of  David. 
God  meant  it  should  be  thus  shut  out.  He  has,  perhaps, 
secluded  all  other  parts  of  the  universe  in  like  manner. 
To  us,  and  to  every  other  world,  if  there  are  such  other 
worlds,  it  is  the  same  as  if  no  other  than  itself  existed. 

25* 


294        EMPTINESS   OF  MERE  SPACE   KNOAVLEDGE. 

He  is  the  God  of  our  world,  the  same  as  if  this  single 
planet  "were  the  only  theatre  of  his  creative  and  providen- 
tial power.  And  science  has  not,  can  not,  change  this 
in  its  essence  and  reality.  It  may  give  rise  to  a  differ- 
ent view  of  the  universe,  but  it  is  only  in  forced  concep- 
tions, having  their  ground  in  intellectual  or  mathematical 
estimates  that  can  not  be  retained  permanently  by  that 
imaging  faculty  which,  after  all,  must  ever  rule  our  emo- 
tions. We  come  back  again  to  the  old  picture, — yes, 
we  will  say  it,  to  us  the  old  reality, —  that  places  us 
precisely  on  a  par  with  the  men  of  the  olden,  yea,  of 
the  oldest  time.  We  talk  much  of  our  scientific  views 
of  the  universe,  but  there  is  certainly  a  deception  about 
it.  For  the  most  part,  we  have  simply  made  defi- 
nite, to  some  extent,  what  the  old  mind  contemplated  as 
indefinite.  We  have  obtained  something  like  satisfactory 
estimates  of  nearest  distances.  We  have  increased  the 
conceptions  of  space  extent.  Where  the  ancients  rested 
in  hundreds  and  thousands,  we  have  gone  on  to  tens  of 
thousands ;  where  they  had  tens  of  thousands,  we  talk  of 
millions.  And  yet  we  are  deceived  in  the  real  value  of 
this  by  making  estimates  of  space  magnitude  the  real 
test  of  greatness.  Our  scientific  calculations  look  vast, 
indeed,"when  viewed  from  our  stand  point ;  but  examine 
them  carefully,  keep  out  the  swelling  pride  of  mere  space 
discovery,  and  let  reason,  pure  reason,  have  fair  play. 
On  such  a  view,  how  do  these  splendid  constructions  of 
mathematical  genius  wither  up  into  the  merest  skeletons 
and  ghosts  of  knowledge  ?  It  is  a  knowledge  of  spaces, 
forces,  masses,  and  that,  not  in  their  ideas,  but  as  repre- 
sented by  points,  lines,  curves,  angles,  sines,  cosines,  and 
tangents.     That  is  all.     And   that  is  much,  says  the 


HIGHER  ORDERS  OF  BEING  UNKNOWN  TO  SCIENCE.  295 

matliematician.  It  is  so  in  the  scientific  aspect ;  we 
have  no  wish  to  underrate  it  on  its  own  field  ;  and  yet 
what  does  it  tell  us  more  than  the  unshaded  outline  map  of 
some  unknown  and  unknowable  continent  ?  We  see  in  such 
map  points  and  distances  ;  we  see  waving  lines  of  various 
lengths  crossed  by  rectilineal  parallels  ;  but  in  all  higher 
and  truer  knowledge  connected  with  our  human  interests 
and  human  sympathies,  it  is  as  void  as  the  waste  ocean 
that  surges  around  its  unknown  shores,  or  the  blank 
space  that  rises  immeasurably  above  its  formless  surface. 
There  are  beings  of  a  higher  rank  than  human,  many 
orders  of  them  probably,  whether  the  inhabitants  of  stars, 
or  of  worlds  of  a  different  kind  too  aetherial  to  be  seen  by 
our  grosser  vision  ;  but  for  this  knowledge  we  are  indebted 
to  the  Bible.  Science  here  is  as  silent  as  the  Pyramids. 
She  would  rather  regard  the  human  race  as  the  highest 
to  which  the  physical  or  creative  progress  has  yet  arriv- 
ed. But  Scripture  has  revealed  it  to  us ;  for  the  know- 
ledge has  a  nearer  bearing  on  our  spiritual  destiny,  than 
any  science  we  may  possess  of  the  visible  worlds  of  astro- 
nomy. Nothing  there  is  known  which  can  in  any  way 
aflfect  our  Scriptural  theology.  Whatever  of  Ufe  there 
may  be  in  those  conceived  or  estimated  spaces,  whatever 
rank  of  being,  whatever  goodness,  happiness,  beauty,  or 
their  opposites, —  whatever  pohtical  or  social  condition, 
whatever  moral  state,  confirmed  or  fallen,  redeemed  or 
lost, —  all  this  is  no  less  matter  for  the  imagination,  and 
no  more  a  knowledge  which  is  to  change  our  theological 
belief,  than  it  was  in  the  days  of  Abraham  and  Pytha- 
goras. But  we  are  rambling  agam.  To  resume  the 
order  of  discussion,  we  have — 


296      THE   FIRST   NIGHT  OF  THE  MOSAIC   CREATION. 

6th.  An  argument  from  the  Mosaic  division  of  the 
creative  times.  It  is  clear,  on  the  face  of  "the  account, 
that  the  whole  creative  process  there  set  forth,  whether 
universal  or  partial,  or  whatever  it  might  embrace,  was 
meant  to  be  included  in  six  days  or  divisions  of  time. 
"  In  six  days  God  made  the  Heaven,  the  Earth,  the  Sea, 
and  all  that  in  them  is."  Whatever,  therefore,  was 
extra  dies,  does  not  belong  to  this  account.  It  may  have 
place  in  some  other  or  greater  chronology,  but  does  not 
come  into  the  Geology  or  Ouranology  of  Moses.  But  if 
the  first  verse  denotes  a  separate  antecedent  work, 
whether  nearly  or  remotely  antecedent,  it  would  be  thus 
extra  dies ;  for  nothing  is  more  clearly  impressed  upon 
the  account,  than  the  fact  that  the  hexameron  commen- 
ces with  the  night.  It  is  as  clear,  too,  that  the  light  is 
the  first  morning.  It  is  equally  evident  that  this  is 
the  antithesis  of  the  darkness  resting  on  the  terrestrial 
waters.  Put  them  together,  and  we  have  the  two  limits 
of  this  First  day.  Can  the  great  primordial  act  be  as- 
signed to  the  night  ?  If  so,  it  was  the  beginning  of  the 
night,  for  the  light  was  its  termination.  But  if  the  be- 
ginning of  a  night,  what  was  before  it  ?  We  get  into 
strange  positions  here ;  and  the  reason  is,  that  every 
man's  soul  must  feel  that  there  is  neither  consistency, 
nor  harmony,  nor  rationality  in  such  a  view.  If  we  make 
the  Mosaic  light,  or  the  command  for  its  outshining,  the 
primordial  act,  then  the  darkness  before  it  was  the  dark- 
ness of  nothingness.  This  might  seem  consistent  in  itself; 
but  no  one  can  read  the  account,  and  reconcile  such  a 
view  with  the  language  of  Moses.  If  the  darkness  was 
the  darkness  of  nothingness,  the  waters  were  the  waters 
of  nothingness,   or,  to  adopt  the  scientific  term,   the 


THE  PRIMORDIAL  ACT,  EXTRA  DIES.        297 

"  fluid"  of  nonentitj.  Here  is  chaos  certainly  ;  but  it 
is  in  the  mind  of  the  one  who  attempts  to  form  such  a 
conception.  All  is  confusion,  waste  and  void,  a  mental 
tohu  and  bohu  instead  of  one  of  the  most  vivid  pictures 
language  was  ever  employed  to  express.  The  reader 
will  see,  of  course,  that  the  remarks  do  not  apply  to  the 
fact  of  such  origination,  but  to  the  supposed  representa- 
tion of  it  by  Moses.  The  primordial  act,  through  which 
matter  is  supposed  to  have  come  into  being,  is  no  where  in 
the  diorama  of  this  first  day ;  it  is  therefore  not  set  forth 
in  the  Mosaic  Creation^  whether  iNIoses  thought  of  it  or 
not.  No  rational  mind,  we  say,  could  think  of  calling  it 
in  question  as  a  fact ;  but  that  does  not  make  it  any  the 
less  extra  dies.  The  creation  recorded  by  Moses  was  all 
in  six  days.  To  find  what  lies  fairly  within  these  limits, 
be  it  partial  or  universal,  belongs  to  the  truthful  inter- 
preter. Whatever  lies  without,  and  can  by  no  consistent 
effort  be  brought  within,  may  be  left  to  the  vaunting 
theories  of  an  ambitious  science,  and  the  speculations  of 
a  bigoted  unbiblical  theology. 

"We  can  not  close  this  excursus  without  adverting  to  the 
obvious  parallel  to  this  Mosaic  account  which  is  presented 
in  the  beginning  of  the  Gospel  by  John.  We  have  a 
heginning  mentioned  there.  We  have  also  a  light,  and 
a  darkness  in  which  (not  out  of  which,  as  in  the  Mosaic 
account,  2  Cor.  iv,  6,)  the  light  shone.  This  Light  was 
a  much  older  light  than  the  one  revealed  Genesis  i,  3  ; 
even  as  the  heginning  here  is  a  far  more  ancient  begin- 
ning. It  v/as  the  EikuVj  Colos.  i,  15,  the  A'aaCjadiia  <r% 
Coin's,  Heb.  i,  3,  or  first  out  beaming  of  the  Divine  Glory, 
the  light  which  "  the  darkness  apprehendeth  not,"  that 


298  THE   FIRST   CHAPTER   OF  JOHN. 

is,  which  no  darkness  overtakes  (xarsXa/Ssv,  Jo.  i,  5,)  or 
succeeds*,  as  it  does  the  physical  light.  Here,  too,  we 
have  a  parallel  mention  of  an  older  and  more  universal 
creation.  The  Apostles'  knowledge  of  the  universe  was, 
perhaps,  not  much,  if  any,  greater  than  that  of  Moses, 
but  he  is  directed  to  the  use  of  language,  not  only  wider 
in  itself,  but  exceeding,  by  its  manner  of  expression,  the 
very  idea  of  any  partial  work.  ^^AU  things  were  made 
by  Him,  and  loiiliout  Him  tvas  there  nothing  made 
wliicli  tvas  made.'*''  Could  not  Moses  have  used  similar 
language,  had  he  thought  of  taking  into  his  picture  any 
thing  more  ancient  than  the  waters  and  the  darkness 
that  rested  upon  them.  The  contrast,  as  well  as  the  pa- 
rallel, would  seem  unmlstakeable.  The  one  begins  Avith 
light,  the  other  with  darkness ;  in  the  one  the  light  is 
followed  by  an  evening,  in  the  other  the  darkness  never 
overtakes  or  comprehends  it ;  the  one  embraces  all  things, 
the  other  the  Earth  with  the  Heaven  immediately  above 
it  and  that  is  made  after  it.  To  this  corresponds  the 
language  of  Paul,  Colos.  i,  16,  where  he,  too,  evidently 
goes  beyond  the  Mosaic  account  both  in  language  and 
idea  — "  Who  is  the  Image  of  the  invisible  God,  the  First 
Born  before  all  creation.  For  in  Him  were  all  things 
created,  all  things  in  the  Heavens  and  all  things  upon 
the  Earth,  the  visible  and  the  invisible,  whether  they  be 
Thrones,  or  Lordships,  or  Principalities,  or  Powers,  all 

*  The  arguments  for  tlie  common  rcuJcring  of  this  passage  are  strong, 
especially  as  favored  by  the  context  iu  the  lltli  and  12th  verses.  Still,  in 
the  Greek  verb  itself  there  is  much  to  support  the  ether  view,  which  makes 
a  strongly  marked  parallel,  or  rather  contrast,  with  Genesis.  The  sense 
of  imders/ a II ill )isr,  takiiifr  by  ihe  7niiid,  belongs  to  the  word,  but  it  is  quite 
unusual;  the  other  sense  is  almost  universal.  Where  this  light  shines, 
there  is  no  night  or  evening  there. 


THE  GREATER  CREATION,  THE  GREATER  LIGHT.  299 

things  hy  Him^  and /or  Him  -vyere  created."  Whatever 
these  invisible  things  may  mean,  (a  question  we  have 
argued  elsewhere,)  they  are  clearly  something  beyond, 
above,  and  distinct  from,  the  visible  or  phenomenal  (ra 
(pa(vo>?va,  "f/ie  tilings  that  are  seen,^^^  to  which  the  ac- 
count of  Moses  seems  wholly  confined.  Here,  too,  we 
have  the  Life  as  well  as  the  Light.  "  In  Him  was  hfe, 
and  the  life  was  the  light  of  men."  In  Genesis,  the 
going  forth  of  the  Word,  or  Logos,  is  ever  the  origin  of 
physical  life,  but  here  is  something  higher.  It  is  the 
identification  of  the  Light  and  Life  —  the  Life  was  the 
Light  of  men.  The  Logos  in  nature^  is  certainly  a  pro- 
minent, though  much  neglected  doctrine  of  the  Bible  ; 
but  here  is  something  that  we  must  receive  as  a  still 
greater  mystery.  It  passeth  understanding,  and  yet  it 
is  not  on  that  account  to  be  denied,  or  lowered  to  some- 
thing clearly  within  our  comprehension.  The  Zw^i  must 
be  more  than  a  moral  influence,  or  moral  teaching,  how- 
ever high  the  truths  thus  taught.  Writers  called  evan- 
gelical have  maintained  this  moral-suasion  ground ;  but 
if  they  take  no  other,  we  see  not  how  they  are  to  defend 
themselves  against  the  more  consistent  Socinian  argu- 
ment, or  deny  the  interpretation  which  would  make  the 
Logos  here  but  another  name  for  the  impersonal  Reason. 
"  Without  Sim  there  ivas  nothing  made  which  ivas 
made.^^  There  is  a  different  division  of  this  third  verse, 
adopted  by  some  of  the  Fathers,  and  having  support  in 
some  of  the  old  versions.  If  it  can  be  philologically  jus- 
tified, it  is  entitled  to  respectful  attention  for  the  mean- 
ing which  it  would  seem  to  bring  out.  They  took  the 
0  yg/ovsv  of  the  third  verse,  as  the  begmning  of  the  next 
clause — "  That  which  Avas  made,  in  Him  was  life." 


300  THE   INEFFABLE   TRUTH. 

The  proposition,  then,  would  seem  to  be,  not  simply  that 
life  was  in  the  Logos,  but  that  the  natural  creation  had 
its  life  in  Him  who  was  also,  in  a  spiritual  sense,  both 
the  light  and  the  life  of  men. 

Between  the  First  of  Genesis  and  the  First  of  John 
there  is  not  only  a  parallel  but  a  contrast.  One  is  wholly 
pictorial,  yet  none  the  less  real.  It  is  true  as  a  picture. 
Its  truthfulness  is  according  to  the  vividness  with  which 
the  ineffable  causalities  are  represented,  as  they  appear, 
and  in  the  order  in  which  they  appear,  on  the  canvas  of 
the  mind's  conception.  The  other,  transcending  all  con- 
ceptions, gives  us  only  the  most  general  names  for  pri- 
mary ideas, —  the  Word,  the  Life,  the  Light,  the  Univer- 
sal Origination.  Its  truthfulness  is  according  to  its  uni- 
versahty.  The  aim  of  science,  in  distinction  from  both 
these,  would  be  to  give  us  the  particular  and  linked 
causalities.  It  has  been  shown  that,  however  correct  in 
itself,  or  for  the  very  short  distance  it  goes,  it  must  ever 
fail  in  respect  to  primal  powers.  The  falsehood  of  its 
ambitious  attempt  consists  in  its  unmeasurably  short-fall- 
ing ;  paradox  as  it  may  seem,  its  inadequacy  here  is  in 
the  ratio  of  the  accuracy  and  minuteness  of  its  details. 
From  such  a  view  one  reflection  presents  itself  strongly 
to  the  mind.  There  is  an  ineffable  truth  in  creation, 
even  in  the  physical  creation.  At  some  period  of  our 
existence  that  ineffable  truth  may  be  brought  nearer  to 
our  minds.  Who  will  then  be  found,  though  far  below, 
to  have  had  his  eye  in  the  right  direction  ?  The  man  who 
has  taken  the  simple  pictorial  Bible  account,  or  he  who 
has  sought  for  something  better  in  the  ambitious  path  of 
science  ?  If  infinite  wisdom  is,  indeed,  the  author  of  the 
Scriptures,  there  can  bo  but  one  answer  to  the  question. 


ANTIQUITY  OF  THE  EARTH.      ~    301 


CHAPTER  X. 


ANTIQUITY    OF   THE   EARTH. 
Geology  claims  the  Sole  Credit  of  the  Idea —  What  may  be 
fairly  Conceded  to  her —  One  who  is  not  a  Geologist  may 
Reason  about  Geology — The  Geologist  himself  may  be  un- 
fitted for  Cosmical  Questions — A  little  Science  ivakes  up 
Thought  in  Thoughtful  Minds — The  Idea  once  aroused  is 
seen  every  tohere — Antiquity  of  the  Earth  seen  in  the  most 
Common  Fhenamena — Nature^  in  general,  Honest  and 

Truthful — Geological  Changes  referred  to  in  Job  xiv 

The    Ancient  Philosophy Tlie    World-Problem Hie 

Schoolmen  and  the  Galileos — TJie  ^'  Students  of  Nature'''' 

The  Epicureans  the  Ancient  Scientific  Boasters — Natural 
TJieology. 

Aside  from  the  supernatural  fact,  the  hexameral  divi- 
sion, as  has  been  ah*eady  remarked,  is  the  principal  fea- 
ture in  the  Mosaic  account.  The  length  of  the  days  is 
a  subordinate  question.  K  thoughtful  mind  -would,  in- 
deed, feel  that  there  was  something  extraordinary  about 
them  in  the  manner  of  their  division,  in  their  mysterious 
mornings  and  evenings  made  -without  a  sun  or  any  astro- 
nomical changes,  and  their  strange  commencement  in 
each  case  by  the  intervention  of  a  supernatural  Word. 
Such  thoughtful  mind  would  carry  this  sense  of  the  ex- 
traordinary into  the  duration.  As  long,  however,  as 
there  was  nothing  outward,  that  is,  no  outward  knowledge 

26 


302  CREDIT   DUE   GEOLOGY. 

associating  itself  with  the  length  or  shortness  of  the  times, 
the  idea  of  such  extraordinary  duration  might  remain 
undeveloped  ;  especially  since  in  itself  it  is  entirely  inde- 
finite,—  a  long  or  a  short  time  satisfying  the  philological 
conception,  although  the  general  mysteriousness  that  per- 
vades the  whole  remarkable  history  favors  the  wider  no- 
tion. Still,  the  ante-solar  day  might  be  of  any  length* ; 
and  there  was  little  to  disturb  the  view  that  had  become 
in  a  great  measure  constant  in  modem  times,  until  Geo- 
logy began  to  proclaim  its  discoveries.  This  is  its  merit, 
and  it  is  wilhngly  conceded  to  it.  It  waked  up  the  com- 
mon mind  to  a  thought,  which,  although  slumbering  in 
the  masses,  had  been  entertained  by  meditative  souls  as 
perfectly  consistent  with  the  language, —  a  thought  that 
when  fully  aroused  is  found  to  be  in  beautiful  harmony  . 
with  the  greater  analogies  of  Scripture,  as  they  direct 
our  minds  to  the  prophetic  destinies  of  this  world  and 
God's  apparently  slow  working  therein. 

This  credit,  then,  may  be  cheerfully  conceded  to  Geo- 
logy. It  has  made  common  this  idea  of  the  antiquity  of 
the  earth.  And  yet  nothing  can  be  more  false  than  the 
notion  that  any  great  amount  of  natural  science,  or  geo- 
logical science,  is  necessary  for  the  satisfactory  appre- 
hension and  holding  of  such  an  idea.  There  may  be 
given  to  the  remark  a  wider  application.  In  nothing, 
perhaps,  do  our  more  boasting  class  of  scientific  men 
show  a  more  unphilosophical  blindness,  than  in  the  evident 
conceit,  they  so  often  manifest,  that  the  man  who  does 

"There  is  something  striking  in  the  view  of  Professor  Pierce,  thut  this 
Lexamei-al  division  denotes  an  order  rather  than  any  particular  times 
long  or  short.  It  is  well  worthy  of  attention,  and  we  should  prefer  it  to 
either  the  twenty  four  hoar,  or  the  nebular  scheme.  Still  we  can  not 
divest  ourselves  of  the  idea  of  a  chronology. 


"  STUDENTS    OF   NATURE."  303 

not  profess  to  understand  conchology,  and  mineralogy, 
or  even  geology,  in  their  scientific  order,  is,  therefore, 
unqualified  to  reason  about  them,  or  any  of  the  great 
physical  questions  connected  with  creation  and  origin. 
Now  this  is  narrow  —  very  narrow.  There  is,  indeed, 
required  some  knowledge  of  these  sciences,  as  sciences, 
that  a  man  may  estimate  correctly  their  true  position ; 
but  such  knowledge  need  not  be  extensive  nor  minute. 
He  may  make  blunders  occasionally ;  and  he  can  afford 
to  do  so,  without  mortification,  if  the  higher  result  of  his 
argument  is  unaffected  by  them.  There  are  beyond 
these,  and  above  these,  other  departments  of  knowledge, 
of  higher  interest,  and  demanding  severer  thought. 
There  are  students  of  God's  Word  who  can  well  afford 
to  be  ignorant  of  many  things  esteemed  highest  by  these 
"  Students  of  Nature."  But  even  in  geology,  it  requires 
no  great  amount  of  technical  geological  science  to  rea- 
son, and  reason  correctly, —  not  on  the  numerous  ques- 
tions of  fact  and  inference  disputed  among  professional 
geologists  them.selves, —  but  upon  the  bearing  of  the  sci- 
ence and  its  discoveries  on  the  great  fields,  both  of  in- 
ductive and  revealed  truth.  There  is  some  reason  to 
think,  that  the  man  who  looks  at  the  universe  as  repre- 
sented in  his  scientific  cabinet,  is,  in  fact,  thereby  less 
qualified  for  such  an  argument.  He  is  too  fond  of  show- 
ing off  his  science  in  its  partial  aspects  ;  there  are  cer- 
tain cherished  views,  or  scientific  hobbies,  we  might  call 
them,  certain  narrow  niches  and  corners  of  truth,  which 
have  become  special  favorites  ;  these  are  hostile  even  to 
the  wider  cosmical  survey  in  its  physical  aspect,  and 
much  more  so  as  such  survey  connects  itself  with  the 
spiritual  mundane  destiny. 


304  SCIENCE   WAKES   UP   THOUGHT. 

Science,  as  we  have  said,  vralces  up  thought, —  thought 
beyond  her  own  discoveries,  or  the  strictly  scientific  do- 
main. And  this  is  the  main  use  of  her.  But  she  does 
so  only  in  thoughtful  souls  ;  and  such  is  far  from  being 
the  character  of  all  scientific  men.  To  many  she  imparts 
only  dry  knowledge,  very  scientific  it  may  be,  but  of 
very  inferior  value.  The  thinking  of  men  had  not  been 
much  turned  to  the  antiquity  of  the  earth, —  we  say 
again,  in  comparatively  modern  times,  for  it  has  been 
;shown  that  it  was  an  ancient  speculation,  philosophical 
as  well  as  traditional  and  poetical, —  but  in  modern  times, 
for  certain  reasons,  the  thought  had  slumbered,  until 
Geology  again  awoke  it ;  just  as  in  other  cases,  that  might 
be  mentioned,  we  are  sometimes  startled  by  the  fact  of 
modern  research  calling  out  an  old,  sometimes  a  very  old, 
idea.  Now  give  Geology  all  credit  for  this,  and  yet  it 
requires  no  great  amount  of  exact  geological  knowledge 
to  reach  out  to  the  great  conclusion.  In  fact,  a  man's 
common  every  day  observations,  if  he  be  at  all  what  we 
have  called  a  thoughtful  man,  are  sufficient  for  this.  Let 
the  mind  be  once  upon  the  track,  and  he  need  not,  for 
this  purpose,  study  Buckland  or  Lyell.  The  ideas  of 
great  times,  great  spaces, — those  old  native  ideas  that 
had  been  haunting  the  soul's  dreams  —  start  up  and 
carry  him  through  without  the-  aid  of  diagrams  or  fossil 
drawings.  Let  something  fairly  arouse  the  thought 
within  him,  and  he  sees  it  represented  every  where.  He 
can  not  ride  through  the  Hudson  Highlands,  even  in  the 
rapid  flight  of  the  rail  road  car,  without  seeing  how  the 
earth  shows  growth  —  that  is,  the  evidence  o^  gradual*  or 

*  It  may  seem  hardly  necessary  to  remind  the  iutelliger.t  reader,  that 
this  word  is  here  used  in  its  etymological  strictness,  of  a  proceeding  prr 


NATURE  HONEST  AND  TRUTHFUL.       305 

serial  succession.  He  sees  this  just  as  clearly  as  lie  sees 
a  similar  though  shorter  growth  in  his  woods  and  gardens. 
The  appearance  of  time,  succession,  dependence,  of  one 
step  waiting  for  another,  is  as  significantly  and  as  sug- 
gestively marked  in  the  one  as  in  the  other.  He  must, 
also,  regard  them  as  equally  truthful  —  that  is,  as  much 
indicating  what  they  appear  to  indicate' — unless  he  is 
forbidden  thus  to  think  by  a  clear,  positive  revelation. 
Such  a  reserve  proviso  he  must  ever  have  ;  for  Scripture 
has  intimated  that  there  may  be,  sometimes,  a  false  face 
on  nature.  She  is  a  cx^m-^-)  ^  shotv,  or  outside  figure, 
ever  passing  away  ;  and  this  may  be  in  fact  very  rapid 
as  measured  on  one  scale  when  it  may  seem  to  be  slow, 
very  slow,  as  graduated  on  another.  She  works  irregu- 
larly, too,  in  a  fallen  world,  where  it  is  part  of  her  mis- 
sion to  make  the  physical,  in  some  measure,  a  picture  of 
the  moral  deformity.  Hence,  nature  may  be  more  full 
of  paradoxes  here  than  in  other  spheres,  whether  her 
irregular  workings,  her  deformities,  her  catastrophes,  her 
noxious  births,  are  to  be  viewed  as  current  retributions, 
or  ancient  adaptations  to  a  world  foreordained  to  be  the 
birth  place,  and  the  long  abode  of  falUble  and  actually 
fallen  beings.  But,  in  general,  she  is  to  be  regarded  as 
honest,  so  that  her  appearances*  so  far  as  they  seem  to 

•^radum,  which  we  can  not  separate  from  some  correspoiiding  duration 
having  as  many  distinct  times  as  there  are  appearances  of  distinct  steps. 
Growth,  also,  is  taken  in  the  general  sense  of  successive  addition. 

•Throughout  the  two  long  articles  of  Professor  Dana  in  the  Andover 
Bibliotheca,  there  is  nothing  more  absurd  than  the  misapprehension  he 
has  everywhere  manifested  in  respect  to  the  author's  use  of  this  word  ap- 
pearance. In  the  Six  Days  of  Creation,  it  is  employed  uniformlj-,  and 
with  studied  consistency,  as  representative  of  a  high  reality — that  real, 
substantial,  powerful,  though  in  itself  unseen,  thing  that  appears  in  it,  or 
through  it.  The  author  makes  just  the  distinction  that  the  most  perfect  ot 
languages  so  easily  suggests  between  the  iking  that  appears  (that  is,  makes 

26* 


306  EFFECTS,   CAUSES  —  SUCCESSION,  TIME. 

indicate  her  modes  and  steps  of  working,  are  not  vain 
Ijing  shows,  but  truly  represent  the  unseen  powers  that 
lately,  or  long  ago,  have  left  their  marks  upon  her  face. 
She  does  not  show  apparent  effects  that  had  no  causes, 
nor  steps  that  had  no  succession,  nor  succession  that  had 
no  corresponding  times.  Whether  God  ever  makes  im- 
mediately products  apparently  organic,  having  the  appear- 
ances of  succession,  and  yet  no  succession  in  reahty,  no 
movement  per  gradus, —  it  is  hard  for  us  to  say.  We 
can  not  affirm  it  or  deny  it.  It  is  so  difficult  for  us  to 
know  how  time  and  space,  succession  and  motion,  enter 
into  the  essence  of  his  working  in  distinction  from  its  man- 
ifestation to  finite  beings,  that,  in  such  cases,  our  only 
safety  consists  in  clinging  close  to  the  language  of  Scrip- 
ture and  its  fair  exegesis.  In  the  record  of  such  facts 
as  the  creation  of  the  first  human  body,  and  the  forma- 
tion of  the  female  organism  therefrom,  we  have  a  special 

•the  appearance)  in  the  active  or  middle  sense,  and  that  which  appears,  or 
the  appearance,  in  the  passive.  This  one  remark  is  a  suflicient  answer  to 
all  the  places  in  which  Professor  Dana  has  used  the  word  as  a  bugbear,  in 
Jiis  charge  of  Platonism,  or  otherwise.  He  has  ever  confounded  qjarffjLa, 
.  n-  (pavrarff^a,  a  subjective  apparition,  with  (paivojxevov,  a  real  appear- 
:ance  of  a  real  thing.  No  other  philosophy,  we  may  remark,  makes  so  real 
a  world  as  the  Platonic,  or  is  farther  removed  ,from  that  subjectivism 
whose  ghosts  are  the  ghosts  of  nothing,  whose  (parffJiaTa  are  the  fantasies 
of  nothing,  and  which  is,  therefore,  a  system  of  nothingness  from  beginning 
:to  end,  as  unsubstantial  on  the  one  side,  as  dead  materialism  on  the  other. 
Mr.  Lord  makes  the  same  charge,  but  we  would  only  say  of  him,  as  civ- 
illy as  we  can,  that  his  utter  want  of  knowledge  of  the  philosophy  he  so 
ferociously  assails,  makes  it  unworthy  of  notice.  He  has  something  which 
he  calls  mind,  or  spiritual  entity  ;  all  other  reality,  to  his  thinking,  is  found 
in  hard  matter.  An  immaterial  entity  which  is  not  mind,  he  holds  to  be 
nonsense.  Of  course,  whether  he  sees  it  or  not,  there  being  between  this 
.mind  and  this  hard  matter,  no  intermediate  reality  of  any  kind,  the  latter 
is  the  direct  pantheistic  image  of  the  former,  or  it  is  the  veriest  ghost  of 
nothing,  or  else,  however  unintelligible  and  irrational  the  thought,  it  is 
t'tcmal  and  self  subsistent. 


BODY   OF   ADAM — DID   IT    SHOW    GROWTH?        307 

revelation  to  which  "  we  do  well  to  take  heed,"  and  study 
it  deeply,  without  being  overwise,  either  in  our  literalism, 
or  our  symbolism,  or  our  philosophy.  And  yet  it  would 
be  not  a  proud,  but  a  reverent  thought  to  be  humbly  en- 
tertained, that  the  best  and  most  honest  interpretation 
we  can  put  upon  it,  may,  after  all,  have  much  remaining 
still  of  the  ineffable  and  the  unknown.  In  such  cases, 
however,  we  are  fairly  warned  of  the  exception,  and 
have  a  caution  not  to  go  by  appearances,  or,  at  least,  not 
to  draw  from  them  the  same  conclusions  that  we  derive 
from  the  common  or  ordinary  manifestations.  The  human 
body  of  Adam,  when  first  made,  may  have  presented  the 
same  appearances  in  the  bone,  the  flesh,  the  blood,  that 
exist  in  the  present  adult  healthful  human  organism,  and 
Avhich  indicate  growth,  and  maturity  as  the  result  of 
growth.  It  may  have  presented  such  an  appearance,  it 
probably  did  present  such  an  appearance — we  can  hardly 
conceive  of  it  otherwise  whilst  thinking  of  it  as  a  human 
body  at  all,  or  as  representative  of  other  human  bodies — 
and  yet  in  the  peculiar  circumstances  of  that  extraordi- 
nary case,  we  would  have  no  right  to  adopt  either  of  the 
two  conclusions  that  would  present  themselves  to  some 
minds  as  the  only  ones.  It  would  be  very  rash  in  us  to 
hold,  either  that  the  appearances,  in  such  case,  must  be 
the  appearances  of  nothing,  in  other  words,  mere  (pao'ju-a-Ta, 
or  that  they  necessarily  indicate  the  same  outward  astro- 
nomical time,  and  the  same  mode  of  generative  working, 
as  is  now  required  for  such  an  organic  result.  If  there 
were  appearances  of  growth,  succession,  maturity,  then 
would  there  be  a  reverent  warrant  for  concluding  that 
even  in  this  extraordinary  creation,  there  were  realities 
in  the  working  corresponding  to  them,  in  other  words,  a 


308  THE  MEDITATIVE   SPIRIT. 

growth,  a  succession,  a  maturity,  but  in  their  time,  and 
their  modal  causality,  ineffable,  that  is,  altogether  trans- 
cending, and  not  to  be  measured  on  the  scale  to  which 
the  present  appearances  are  to  be  brought  as  their  only 
intelligible  standard. 

These  remarks  apply  to  what  may  be  called  the  extra- 
ordinary creations  among  creations, — for  such  there  are 
on  the  very  face  of  Scripture  —  but  in  other  cases,  and 
especially  where  the  inspired  writer  uses  the  very  lan- 
guage of  natural  causality,  the  appearances  of  nature 
may  fairly  enter  in  our  reasoning  as  determinative  of  the 
great  facts  of  succession,  if  not  of  their  precise  chrono- 
logy- 

We  may  say,  then,  that  in  general,  and  when  we  have 
no  positive  revelation  to  the  contrary,  nature  is  to  be 
trusted,  with  all  allowance  for  our  exceeding  ignorance 
of  her  immensely  varied  laws,  and  for  what,  for  all  we 
know  to  the  contrary,  may  have  been  their  immensely 
varied,  and  frequently  varied,  rates  of  energising.  In 
thus  trusting  nature,  the  meditative  man  who  has  but  the 
rudiments  of  exact  science  may  be  on  a  par  with  the 
most  boasting  savan.  Nay,  for  reasons  to  which  we  have 
elsewhere  alluded,  he  may  even  have  the  advantage  of 
him.  In  his  broader  thinking,  there  is  less  disturbance 
arising  from  any  cherished  partial  views  ;  in  the  absence 
of  a  blinding  scientific  interest,  there  is  less  in  the  way 
of  those  great  conclusions,  which  the  broad  face  of  nature 
suggests  as  promptly  and  as  strongly  as  the  more  minute 
discoveries.  Such  a  meditative  spirit  can  not,  for  exam- 
ple, walk  on  the  lake  beach,  and  see  the  smooth,  round 
stones  as  they  are  worn  into  ovals  by  the  long  action  of  the 
waters,  and  then  their  exact  resemblances  on  the  distant 


GEOLOGICAL   CHANGES   MENTIONED    IN   JOB   XIV.    309 

hills,  without  feeling  that  the  appearance  of  time  in  the 
one  case  is  just  as  truthful  as  that  in  the  other.  Nature 
renders  the  same  verdict  of  facts  in  both,  and  if  there  be 
no  arrest  of  judgment  on  the  higher  written  evidence, 
superseding  such  parol  testimony,  as  we  may  call  it,  he 
takes  her  verdict  as  she  honestly  gives  it  in.  He  draws 
from  it  the  most  natural  and  obvious  inferences.  If  it 
took  ages  to  form  these  smooth  ovals  in  one  spot,  it  took 
ages  to  form  them  in  the  other.  And  yet,  on  other  good 
and  satisfying  evidence,  he  knows  that  ages,  historical 
ages  at  least,  have  intervened  since  the  causality  that 
there  once  energized  has  been  quiescent.  Troy  has 
been  taken,  yea,  the  Pyramids  have  been  built,  since  any 
important  geographical  change  took  place  in  those  regions. 
The  most  ancient  of  known  historical  events  have  passed 
away  since  there  "  tlie  water  washed  those  stones,''^ — to 
use  the  clear  language  of  Job  (xiv)  describing  the  same 
phenomenon.  To  a  thinking  man  how  full  of  thought  this 
very  ancient  allusion,  together  with  similar  accompany- 
ing words  in  the  same  remarkable  chapter  of  inspiration  ! 
"  The  crumbling  mountain  falleth  into  ruin  ;  the  rock 
is  removed  froon  its  place  ;  the  dust  of  the  earth  covereth 
over  the  things  that  grow  out  of  it*  The  sea  (the  lake) 
faileth  and  drieth  up  ;  yet  man  lies  still  ;f  he  waheth 
not  from  his  sleep  until  the  Heavens  groiv  oldP  All 
the  verses  we  have  gathered  from  this  ejaculating,  sigh- 

*  Its  long  buried  fossil  plants,  as  tlie  Geologist  would  style  them. 

t  Tlie  Hebrew  SSt:?,  hei"e  employed,  is  the  word  used  so  frequently  for 
lying  down  to  sleep.  This  is  its  main  sense,  too,  in  the  old  Phoenician,  as 
is  evident  from  its  frequent  use  in -the  inscriptions  that  have  been  discover- 
ed in  that  earliest  form  of  the  Hebrew.  Especially  is  it  the  case  with  the 
very  remarkable  one  lately  discovered  near  old  Sidou,  and  which  has  been 
so  carefully  studied  by  the  scholars  of  Germany  and  the  United  States. 


310  "  COME   AGAIN,  YE    SONS   OF  ADAM." 

ing  chapter,  express,  in  their  connection,  the'same  sombre 
thought,  SO  mournful,  yet  so  full  of  interest  in  respect  to 
our  physical  as  well  as  spiritual  destiny.  Throughout 
the  passage  the  contrast  is  between  the  transitoriness  of 
man,  and  the  long,  slow  changes  of  nature,  so  steadily 
yet  irresistibly  going  on  while  he  is  sleeping  in  the  bosom 
of  his  mother  earth,  awaiting  his  own  great  supernatural 
change  that  shall  surely  come  in  the  latter  day.* 

*  The  Arabians  have  a  formula  highly  suggestive  when  considered  in 
connection  with  that  idea  of  reviviscence  whicli  we  think  is  found  in  this 
chapter — "To  God  is  the  return,''  or  to  God  belongs  the  return  ("T^irtt—VN 
al-ma-si-rn).  It  is  one  of  the  solemn  cadences  of  the  Koran,  so  often  em- 
ployed at  the  close  of  verses,  and  has  every  appearance,  like  others  of  those 
cadences,  of  being  a  very  ancent  form  of  speech.  There  are  otherexpres- 
sious  in  the  Koran  of  a  similar  kind,  and  used  in  connection  with  it  as  exe- 
getical  of  its  meaning, — such  as  "God  kiUcth  and  He  maketli  alive  again," 
"He  bringcth  to  death,  and  He  hringeth  bach  from  death."  The  manner 
in  which  these  are  employed  leave  no  doubt  of  their  reference  to  the  re- 
surrection, and  thus  considered,  they  may  greatly  aid  us  in  getting  a  right 
stand-point  for  interpreting  very  similar  language  in  the  Old  Testament. 
Compare  Deut.  xxxii,  39,  and  especially  1  Sam.  ii,  8.  "The  Lord  killeth 
and  He  maketk  alive ;  He  bringctk  down  to  ISkcol,  and  He  bringefh  up 
again'' — Dominus  inoHiJicat  et  vivijicat,  deducit  ad  inferos  el  rcdvcit.  It 
"is  easy  to  give  this  another  sense  ;  and  yet  there  is  a  view  whicli  greatly' 
favors  the  more  impressive  thought,  and  makes  it  seem  not  only  possible, 
but  probable  and  easy  as  coming  in  connection  with  such  ejaculatory  lan- 
guage, and  even  along  witli  expressions  referring  to  the  present  state. 
We  refer  to  the  undoubted  Oriental  belief  in  what  may  be  called  the  hu- 
man cycle,  or  the  doctrine  that  the  human  life  would  come  over  again  on 
this  earth.  Carry  this  along,  and  we  have  a  stand-point  for  the  interpreta- 
tion of  some  of  the  most  striking  passages  in  Job  and  the  Psalms.  It  was 
not  exactly  the  Christian  idea  of  the  resurrection,  but  it  was  the  germ  ( f 
the  doctrine  as  held  by  the  Pharisees,  and  Jews  generally,  in  our  Savior's 
time,  as  well  as  by  the  Arabian  tribes  before  the  days  of  Mohammed. 

In  connection  with  this,  we  may  refer  to  the  rendering  of  Psahnxc,  3,  as 
given  in  the  Prayer  Book  Psalter — "Come  again,  ye  Sons  of  Adam'' — and 
Luther's  touching  translation — Kommt  wieder  Menschen -Kinder, '^Cow!« 
back,  yccluldren  of  men — which  are  also  countenanced,  to  some  extent,  in 
the  ancient  versions.  The  common  rendering  is  strongly  supported  by  tb.e 
seeming  reference  to  Gen.  iii,  19  ;  but  it  is  certain  that  the  word  aiip  freely 
and  equally  admits  both  senses,  a  turning,  n  returning  to,  or  a  returning 


THE   HUMAN   CYCLE.  311 

In  tins  true  view  of  the  passage,  how  suggestive  is  it 
of  our  leading  thought  — an  early  credited  antiquity  of 

fram     So  it  is  applied  to  the  Children  of  Israel,  both  ia  their  backsliding. 
and  their  repentance, or  conversion.    Compare  Jeremiah  iii,  1,  where  it  is 
so  affectiagly  addressed  to  the  adulterous  wik~tamen  rcvcrtere  ad  me  and 
Luther  again,  dock  Jcomm  u-ieder  zu  mb—yet  still  come  hack  to  me.     The 
use  of  the  same  word  iu  both  clauses  of  Psalm  xc,  3,  would  also  seem  to 
show  that  there  was  intended  a  special  significance  in  the  contrast  of  its 
Gouble,  yet  equally  easy  and  equally  prominent  senses.     It  may  be  said 
too,  that  the  other  view  which  makes  them  both  refer  to  the  same  event' 
wea,iens  the  parallelism  by  making  the  command  come  after  the  act.       ' 
_         1  here  is  a  confirmation  of  the  reviviscent  sense  in  the  fact  that  it  seems 
to  explain  the  train  of  thought  which  otherwise  might  appear  abrupt,  or 
without  clear  tran.sition.     The  first  thought  is,  that  God  is  "  our  dwellinc. 
place,"  or  his  peoples'  dwelling  place,  "in  all  generations.''     He  is  yet  the 
God  of  the  dead,  as  well  as  of  the  living.   Then  we  have  the  Divine  Eternity 
V\  ith  this  connects  most  naturally  the  mention  of  "  the  thousand  years  " 
as  a  "  watch  in  the  nigU-  suggestive  of  the  long  sleep  in  the  grave,-s'o 
ong  to  our  conception,  so  short  to  Him.    "  Thor^  overwhelmest,  or  hvriest 
them  ;  they  are  as  a  sleep,  or  they  sleep.-     The  Syriac  here  has  a  para- 
phrastic  rendering  jn  some  way  suggested  by  the   Hebrew  E=3n5a-ir 
' '  Their  generations  are  asleep,"  or  they  sleep  through  generations.    Next 
we  oave  mention  of  the  morning,  when  there  shall  bloom  again  that  which 
m  the  evening  was  cufdown  and  withered.    Is  the  greater  morning  meant 
here  the  morning  and  evening  of  the  cycle  ?     It  would  not  do  for  us  to  say 
rashly  or  confidently  that  this  is  the  most  obvious  meaning,  although  we 
may  feel  strong  in  the  thought  that  it  is  suggestive,  and  may  have  been 
so  intended,  of  the  wider  sense,-the  longer  sleep,  the]  greater  reviving, 
or  springing  again,  such  as  is  almost  ever  denoted  by  the  Hebrew  bVh 
We  would  not  rashly  affirm  this,  but  let  the  reader  compare  Psalm  xlix 
lo,— "The  upnght  shall  have  dominion  in  the  morning,"— the  same  word' 
and  iQ  connections  remarkably  similar,  yet  leaving  no  doubt  of  the  refei- 
euce  being  to  the  great  day  and  the  greater  morning  of  the  world  when 
as  IS  so  clearly  expressed  in  the  next  verse,  God  shall  "redeem  the  soul 
irom  the  power  of  Sheol." 

" Unto  Him  shall  be  theVeturn."  Slow,  immensely  slow,  arelthe  changes 
01  nature  while  man  is  sleeping  in  the  dust;  long  is  she  preparing  for  the 
catastrophies  that  attend  or  precede  the  greater  cycle,  but  "the  mom- 
mg  Cometh  as  well  as  the  night."  Whether  primarily  intended  in  this 
passage,  or  only  suggested  by  it,  still  the  doctrine  of  the  great  human 
change,  or  n2^Vh,  may  be  supported,  even  from  the  older  Scripture,  if  we 
seek  to  study  it  in  the  spirit  of  the  Great  Interpreter,  rather  than  that  of 
the  old  Sadduceism  he  so  triumphantly  refuted.  


312   "  THE  WATERS  WEAR  SMOOTH  THE  STONES." 

the  earth  as  something  immensely  older  than  the  human 
race,  who  are  said  to  be  "but  of  yesterday"  in  compar- 
ison with  its  longer  duration.  Especially  is  this  language 
remarkable  as  we  remember  its  place  in  that  most  ancient 
Idumean  Drama.  How  old  the  earth  as  compared  with 
man !  What  marks  of  age,  as  shown  by  slow  physical 
changes,  does  it  exhibit  in  contrast  with  the  brief  human 
cycle,  whether  regarded  as  of  the  individual  or  of  the 
race  !  No  other  or  less  thought  would  have  had  the  force 
or  interest  demanded  by  the  comparison.  "  The  ivaters 
wear  smooth  the  stones ^  The  Hebrew  verb,  phw,  as  we 
have  remarked  elsewhere,  means  to  attenuate,  (Greek 
of  the  LXX,  Xsai'vw,)  to  reduce  to  fine  dust.  Had  the 
Hebrews  or  Arabians  been  scientific  geologists,  they 
would  have  made  from  it  their  scientific  word  correspond- 
ing to  the  modern  term  detritus.  It  is  the  same  pheno- 
menon now  so  frequently  witnessed,  and  which  presented 
the  same  old  look  in  the  early  age  of  Job.  "  The  iva- 
ters wear  smooth  the  stones.''  The  flood  could  not  have 
done  this  work  of  shaping  and  detrition.  We  know  ex- 
actly how  that  fearful  event  took  place.  It  is  presented 
to  us  in  a  picture  which  in  grandeur  and  vividness  is  se- 
cond only  to  that  of  creation.  We  know  from  the  same 
source,  how  brief  the  time  it  occupied.  We  know  the 
very  days  of  the  month  on  which  it  began,  in  which  it 
reached  its  hight,  and  when  it  terminated.  The  changes 
it  wrought  were  mighty,  doubtless  ;  but  very  different 
they  must  have  been  from  the  appearances  we  are  now 
contemplating.  Eflects  must  correspond  to  causes.  The 
effects  as  seen  in  those  smooth  ovals,  so  undisturbed  in 
their  regularity  and  in  their  exact  likeness  of  each  other, 
and  their  exact  correspondence  to  the  contiguous,  or  once 


COMMON  THINGS  TELL  US  OF  THE  REMOTE  PAST.    313 

contiguous,  Tvorking  power,  must  have  been  very  slow 
and  gradual  effects,  unless  nature  lies  to  us,  and  lies,  too, 
■ffitliout  a  reason,  that  is,  any  apparent  reason.  They 
are  gradual  and  regular  eflfects,  and,  therefore,  whether 
natural  or  supernatural,  they  could  not  have  come,  we 
venture  cautiously  to  assert,  from  a  sudden,  abrupt  and 
violent  cause. 

But  our  unscientific  man  whose  meditations  we  have 
been  endeavoring  to  follow,  need  not  travel  to  the  lake 
shore  or  the  mountain  top.  He  need  not  climb  the 
Chimborazo  with  Humboldt,  or  trace  the  wilds  of  Supe- 
rior with  our  equally  adventurous  American  Geologists. 
In  the  evening  quiet  of  his  parlor  fire-side,  he  may  muse 
on  the  lump  of  coal  with  its  suggestive  layers,  or  the 
marble  mantle-piece  with  each  point  and  shade  significant 
of  effects,  as  these  of  causes  or  activities  now  restino* 
but  once  at  work,  and  these  again  of  times  or  intervals 
of  duration,  which,  however  regarded  absolutely  or  in 
themselves,  must  be  pronounced  long  if  measured  by  the 
countless  stepping  places  presented  to  the  eye  in  these 
dead  yet  still  speaking  tablets  of  a  causation  that  has 
passed  away.  Yes  —  even  these  common  objects  com- 
mune with  us  of  the  mysterious  past.  They  tell  the 
same  story.  It  is  change,  if  we  may  not  call  it  growth,, 
slow  change  as  measured  by  its  visible  lines  and  points. 
It  is  time,  succession, — long  succession,  apparentlv, — 
just  as  truthfully  indicating  what  it  seems  to  indicate  as 
the  worn  channels  of  the  streams  or  the  century-formed 
rings  of  the  oak. 

Aside  from  the  nearer  or  more  obvious  deductions,, 
there  is  also  another  class  of  questions — yes,  questions- 
in  nature, —  that  lie  beyond  the  track  of  inductive  sci- 

27 


314  THE    OLD    THINKERS. 

ence,  and  yet  belong  to  the  common  thinking  if  it  be 
vigorous,  if  it  be  truthful  even,  though  wholly  unscientific. 
They  are  beyond  science  ;  but  the  road  to  them  does  not 
lie  through  her  provmce.  They  were  discussed  by  the 
ancient  mind  with  a  keenness  that  modern  philosophy 
fails  to  equal.  No  modern  school  ever  entered  more 
profoundly  into  the  questions  of  origin,  first  matter,  first 
motion,  first  form,  first  unity,  first  diversity,  first  organ- 
ism, first  laws,  ideas,  types,  and  which  was  first  respec- 
tively, things,  outward  things  themselves,  or  ^q  principles 
of  things, —  that  without  which  they  could  not  be  things 
or  have  in  any  sense  a  self-hood  or  ipseity  —  no  modern 
school,  we  say,  ever  entered  more  profoundly  into  ques- 
tions like  these  than  some  of  the  earliest  thinkers.  Bacon 
and  Leibnitz  may  be  ransacked  for  anything  on  these 
subjects  more  acute,  and  we  may  confidently  say,  more 
satisfactory  than  the  reasonings  of  Aristotle  in  his  Physica 
and  Metaphysica.  We  might  extend  the  remark  to 
other  thinkers  of  that  remarkable  period  in  the  world's 
intellectual  history.  We  might  safely  go  farther  up  the 
stream  of  time,  or  we  miglit  come  nearer  to  our  own  age, 
and  still  find  evidence  of  the  position,  that  Avhat  is  called 
science  is  not  the  only,  not  even  the  best  preparation  of 
the  soul  for  the  examination  of  the  higher  cosmological 
questions, —  if  we  ivill  discuss  them  aside  from  revela- 
tion. All  the  Galileos  of  later  times  never  went  so  deeply 
into  these  world-problems,  as  the  Schoolmen  who  have 
been  so  foolishly  contemned  in  the  common  comparison. 
It  requires  no  great  amount  of  faithful  reading  for  an  in- 
telligent mind  to  be  convinced  that  there  are  truly  won- 
ders in  some  of  those  forgotten  tomes.  It  requires  no 
great  erudition  to  read  Anselm,  or  to  study  occasionally 


THE  SCnOOL-MEN  AND  THE  GALILEOS.     315 

a  chapter  of  Aquinas,  but  no  thoughtful  man  can  do  so 
without  feehng  that  the  modern  world,  the  very  modern 
world,  we  mean,  does  not,  and  perhaps  can  not,  supply 
their  places.  As  one  contemplates  with  astonishment 
the  profound  speculations  of  these  men  of  the  cell,  the 
thought  fairly  arises  whether  the  exact  and  exacting 
detail  of  certain  forms  of  mode  rn  physical  or  experimen- 
tal science,  and  the  piece-meal  views  they  give  us  of  the 
universe,  may  not  have  actually  narrowed  the  minds  of 
some  of  its  votaries, —  so  that,  strange  as  it  may  seem, 
there  may  have  been  actually  more  trne  freedom  of  soul 
in  the  cloister,  than  among  many  of  these  boasting  "  stu- 
dents of  nature"  who  roam  the  sea  shore  in  search  of 
shells,  or  penetrate  the  depths  of  the  mine  to  find,  if 
possible,  the  age  of  the  earth.  We  Avould  not  speak 
sweepingly,  or  even  generally.  The  tendency  to  which 
we  allude  is  most  evident  in  certain  quarters,  and  in  cer- 
tain aspects  of  this  "  scientific  age,"  but  there  we  those 
who  unite  the  character  of  the  scientific  man  and  the 
philosopher.  These  may  be  known,  however,  not  more 
by  the  deep  value  of  their  studies,  than  by  the  entire 
absence  of  that  absurd  boasting  which  is  becoming  so  of- 
fensive in  the  lectures  and  inaugural  speeches  of  the 
times. ' 

'  History  is  ever  giving  us  cycles.  They  may  present 
a  wider  spiral,  (as  they  do  sometimes  a  narrower,)  but 
however  magnified  in  some  aspects,  and  diminished  in 
others,  they  hold  similarities  of  feature  that  the  observing 
student  can  hardlj''  fail  to  recognize.  How  strikingly  is 
this  truth  confirmed  when  we  call  to  mind  that  the  shal- 
low Epicureans  were  the  scientific  boasters  of  their  day. 
There  is   no  trace  of  such  a  spirit  in  the  humble  and 


316       THE  EPICUKEANS   THE   ANCIENT  BOASTERS. 

reverent  Socrates ;  Plato  ever  lived  in  a  region  of 
thought  too  lofty  to  allow  its  utterance  ;  Aristotle's 
"  stream  of  flowing  gold,"  as  Cicero  stjdcs  it,  v^as  too 
gravely  solid  for  such  froth  to  rise  and  float  upon  its 
majestically  moving  surface.  It  is  only  as  we  ap];)roach 
a  somewhat  later  time,  that  we  begin  to  hear  a  sound 
reminding  us  of  our  own  most  modern  age.  It  comes  from 
"  the  herd  of  Epicurus,"  magnifying  their  master  as  the 
■^'  Father  of  the  then  modern  philosophy,"  and  filhng  the 
age  with  their  clamor  about  physical  knowledge,  and  the 
wonders  it  was  achieving,  and  the  still  greater  wonders 
it  was  going  to  achieve.  Styx  and  Acheron,  with  all 
their  ghosts,  were  paling  in  its  presence,  as  the  myths 
of  Christianity  flee  before  some  of  our  modern  savans 
who  live  and  write  under  other  influences  than  those  of 
our  New-Haven  and  Andover  orthodoxy.  There  was 
the  same  proud  talk,  too,  about  what  mind  had  done  and 
what  it  would  do  ; 

Omne  imracnsum  peragrans — 
Unde  refeit  nobis  Victor,  quid possit  oriri. 
Quid  noqucnt;  finita  potestas  deuique  quoique 
Qua  nam  eit  ratione,  atque  alte  terminus  haerens. 

It  would  roam  through  all  space  ;  it  would  tell  us  of  ori- 
gin, of  all  that  could  be,  and  of  all  that  could  not  be  ;  it 
would  go  to  the  very  bottom  of  nature ;  it  would  give 
the  reason  of  all  things  ;  it  would  make  immovable  land- 
marks, and  fix  the  deep,  permanent  bound  of  an  unchang- 
ing causality.  Such  wonders  had  it  begun  to  perform  ; 
such  still  greater  wonders  would  it  yet  perform.  We 
could  almost  translate  it  in  the  deep  irony  of  the  Scrip- 
tures—  "  It  would  put  an  end  to  the  darkness  and  search 
out  all  perfection  ;  its  eye  would  see  every  precious  thing 
and  that  which  was  hidden  would  it  bring  to  light ;  it 


THE  SCRIPTURES  REVEAL  THE  TRUE  PROFOUND.    317 

would  enter  the  gates  of  Hades,"  and  heal  the  terrors  of 
"  the  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death ;"  it  would  solve  the 
problem  of  life  ;  "  it  would  find  the  place  of  wisdom  and 
assay  the  value  thereof." 

VitK  ipsam  rationcm,  earn  qus 
Nunc  adpellatur  SAPIENTIA  ;  quaeque  per  artem 
Fluctibus  e  tantis  vitam,  tantisque  tenebris, 
In  tarn  tranquilla,  et  tain  clara  luce,  locabit. 

It  would  discovep  the  long  sought  means  by  which  the 
human  race  would  be  at  last  rescued  from  "  the  mighty 
billows  of  darkness,"  and  brought  to  repose  "  in  clear 
and  tranquil  light."  It  had  much  to  say,  too,  of  its 
utilities,  its  boasted 

Commoda  vitse. 

But  alas  for  ancient  or  modern  science  !  What  a  con- 
trast does  all  this  present  to  that  view  the  Bible  gives 
us  of  the  mysteries  that  surround  our  existence,  and  of 
the  evils,  the  physically  incurable  evils,  in  which  it  is  so 
deeply  sunk.  Even  in  the  merely  natural  aspect,  how 
poor  a  thing  it  really  is  !  But  compare  with  this  empty 
prating  the  true  profound  of  the  Scriptures  —  even  the 
true  physical  profound  —  compare  with  it  those  solemn, 
searching  interrogatories  in  the  xxviiith  and  xxxviiith 
chapters  of  Job,  consider,  moreover,  the  age  of  the 
world,  keep  in  mind  all  of  literature,  science,  or  philoso- 
phy, that  was  outside  of  this  "  enclosed  garden,  this  foun- 
tain sealed"  of  Jewish  wisdom,  and  we  have  an  evidence 
for  the  superhuman  character  of  the  Scriptures  which  it 
would  seem  almost  impossible  for  any  sane  mind  to  resist. 
It  is  indeed  the  true  profound,  revealed  to  us  not  in  at- 
tempted explanations,  but  in  the  awful  disclosure  of  its 
unfathomable  depths. 

27* 


318  ANCIENT   AND   MODERN   SCIENCE. 

But  what  of  those  ancient  pretensions,  some  one  may 
sayT  What  comparison  between  the  science  of  those 
times  and  the  splendid  structure  that  has  been  reared 
since  Bacon  showed  the  right  way  !  Be  the  difference, 
in  other  respects,  what  it  may,  the  boasting  is  certainly 
very  much  the  same  in  both  cases.  What  is  there  —  it 
is  a  question  that  may  well  be  asked  —  what  is  there  in 
this  kind  of  knowledge,  be  it  great  or  small,  that  ever 
tends  to  the  exhibition  of  such  a  spirit  ?  The  language, 
too,  is  so  very  similar.  In  this  respect,  at  least,  the 
warp  and  woof  of  many  a  modern  lecture,  or  modern  in- 
augural, might  be  taken,  almost  verbatim,  from  Lucre- 
tius and  the  ^Fragments  of  Epicurus.  The  very  cant 
^vas  the  same.  Atoms,  molecules,  dexlinationes — it  comes 
near  enough  to  affinities  —  were  their  favorite  words; 
ideas  were  bugbears  (Ts-^aTW(5-/5,)  as  they  are  even  now  to 
"the  sciolist.  Contemptible,  too,  as  may  seem  this  ancient 
science,  the  positions,  we  say  it  boldly,  were  the  same  ; 
we  mean  the  relative  positions  which  render  the  boasting 
in  both  cases  equally  trifling  and  inane.  It  was  not  the 
-small  amount  which  gave  it  this  aspect — for  it  looked  to 
rthe  future,  and  drew  upon  the  future,  even  as  we  do  now 
—  but  it  was  the  vain  assumption  that  it,  or  any  amount 
< of  experimental  science,  so  called,  could  ever  solve  the 
•  deep  problem  of  humanity, —  we  might  say,  even  the  deep 
physical  problem  of  our  world  and  race.  But  in  the  pre- 
sence of  the  still  higher  questions,  how  contemptible  its 
boasting  figure  !  its  inane  prattling  aliout  Styx  and  Tar- 
tarus, and  the  lux  clara,  et  tranquilla,  the  "  serene  and 
•tranquil  light," 

fluctibus  a  tantis  oriens  tantiaque  tenebrifl — 

:n\v\  the  finita  jxitc^itar^^  and   tlie  alte  tcrntiivas  haeroi^, 


STYX   AND    ACHERON,  HOMER   AND    EPICURUS.     319 

and  the  comrnoda  vitce,  and  all  the  other  great  things  it 
had  begun  to  do,  and  would  still  more  perfectly  do  for 
our  poor  priest-ridden,  religion-haunted  world!  —  in  all 
of  which,  bj  the  way,  we  can  not  help  remarking  how 
the  terrors  of  Hades  ever  revealed  themselves  in  the  so 
frequent  mention  of  the  victories  that  science  was  going 
to  achieve  over  them.  How  much  profounder  the  truth 
involved  in  those  fables  of  Styx  and  Acheron,  than  in 
all  their  physical  discovery !  how  much  deeper  the  mine 
of  thought,  even  in  Homer  and  the  Greek  dramatic  poetry, 
than  was  laid  open  in  all  their  science  had  taught  or  would 
ever  teach !  and  yet  how  pitiably  unconscious  do  these 
old  braggarts  seem  to  be  of  it !  Now  this  is  the  thought 
that  renders  true  and  just  the  parallel  we  have  drawn 
between  the  ancient  and  the  modern  science, —  we  mean, 
as  we  need  hardly  tell  our  readers,  the  boasting  aspect 
of  it,  and  the  schools  by  which  such  aspect  is  mainly  re- 
presented. It  is  not  a  question  of  quantity,  but  of  a  re- 
lation. The  science  of  Epicurus  was  certainly  a  very 
small  affair  ;  though  of  considerable  value  when  compared 
with  the  lack  of  it.  It  was  not,  however,  its  quantity, 
we  say  again,  which  gave  it  this  appearance,  but  the  fear- 
ful problem  with  which  it  stood  confronted,  and  which, 
in  its  empty  insolence,  it  had  dared  to  face.  Now,  mo- 
dern science  has  vastly  grown,  and  therefore,  it  may  be 
said,  has  some  right  to  use  this  vaunting  language  that 
sounds  so  preposterous  in  the  mouth  of  its  elder  brother. 
It  has  vastly  grown,  indeed,  and  yet  it  may  be  in  fact, 
a  very  small  affair  in  its  relation  to  the  darkness  that  still 
rests  as  dense  as  ever,  even  on  the  great  ultimate,  or 
more  interior,  truths  of  nature  herself.  The  physical 
<loep,  or  the  deeper  jliysical,  is  no  nearer  being  sounded 


3^0  THE  STILL  MORE  SERIOUS   QUESTION. 

than  in  the  days  of  Job.  There  are  questions,  near  ques- 
tions, in  relation  to  the  most  common  states  of  matter, 
and  suggesting  themselves  to  our  most  obvious  thmking, 
which  science  can  no  more  answer  now  than  then.  Mo- 
lecules^ fluids,  affinities,  give  no  more  help  in  the  case, 
than  atoms,  declinationes,  or  liomoeome7ic  'parts.  Science 
is  yet  upon  the  surface  of  things,  or,  at  the  utmost,  but 
a  few  inches  below.  The  most  candid  and  philosophical 
among  her  votaries  have  admitted  this  with  humility, 
though  without  humiliation.  The  noisier  "  students  of 
nature"  fancy  that  they  have  sailed  many  a  league,  when 
they  are  yet  upon  the  banks  of  the  Ebro.  Like  Don 
Quixotte  and  Sancho  Panza  in  their  strange  colloquy, 
they  talk  of  having  "  passed  the  equinoctial,"  when 
they  have  "  only  dropped  a  few  fathoms  below  their  point 
of  departure"  ;  they  boast  of  "  the  parallels  they  have 
crossed,  the  constellations  they  are  leaving  behind,"  the 
immense  cosmical  progress  they  are  making,  when  they 
are  yet  upon  the  earth,  and  the  most  common  questions 
of  earth  right  round  them  stare  them  in  the  face,  and 
reprove  them,  or  ought  to  reprove  them,  for  their  igno- 
rance as  well  as  their  presumption. 

But  conceding  to  science  all  she  claims,  there  is  another 
view  of  the  matter  which  becomes  still  more  serious  from 
tlie  very  concession.  INIodcrn  science  has  vastly  grown. 
Let  us  admit  it  without  limitation  or  disparagement. 
But  here  comes  the  thought  we  are  most  anxious  to  press 
upon  the  reader's  mind,  because  we  are  certain  of  its 
presenting  a  truth  whose  importance  no  comparison  can 
effect,  no  admission  can  in  the  least  diminish.  It  is  the 
truth  which  places  our  natural  knowledge,  great  as  it 
may  be,  in  the  same  scale,  and  measures  it  by  the  same 


PROBLEM  OF  LIFE  GROWN  FASTER  THAN  SCIENCE.  321 

standard  we  applied  to  the  ancient  pretensions.  Modern 
science  has  grown,  vastly  grown  ;  admit  it  freely ;  but 
so,  also,  has  grown,  be  it  ever  remembered,  fearfully 
grown,  the  mighty  problem  with  which  such  science  is 
yet  confronted.  It  is  this  thought  that  renders  its  pre- 
tentious attitude,  its  Baconian  clamor,  above  all  its  claim 
to  be  a  second  revelation,  even  still  more  absurd,  still 
more  irreverent,  than  the  noisy  Epicurean  boasting.  Sci- 
ence has  grown  in  the  multitude  of  its  facts ;  but  in  a 
still  higher  ratio  has  grown  the  problem  of  human  life, 
grown  in  depth  and  height,  in  grandeur  and  intensity,  in 
awe  and  mystery.  Even  the  physical  has  a  more  tre- 
mendous aspect  than  it  ever  could  have  in  the  days  of 
Epicurus.  The  darkness  here  has  increased  faster  than 
the  light.  History  has  added  her  testimony  to  some- 
thing in  our  race  and  world  with  which  science  can  not 
grapple,  and  can  never  hope  to  grapple.  The  disease, 
the  woe,  the  natural  woe,  is  deeper  than  her  ken.  Even 
physical  sorrows  multiply  faster  than  her  remedies.  The 
cure,  or  seeming  cure,  not  unfrequently  creates  a  new 
disease,  or  makes  the  old  one  start  up  in  still  more  hide- 
ous forms.  Her  utilities,  her  much  lauded  inventions, 
of  which  she  sometimes  boasts  as  though  she  could  really 
make  a  rail  road  to  the  celestial  city,  her  arts  refined 
and  useful,  her  commoda  vitas,  what  do  they  but  engen- 
der an  all-governing  secularity,  or  diseased  civilization, 
prolific  of  a  new  brood  of  monsters  Averse  than  any  of 
which  she  had  boasted  of  having  delivered  the  world. 
Such  is  the  incapacity  of  science  even  to  answer  the 
lower  question.  Who  will  show  us  any  true,  permanent, 
earthly  good  ?  But  when  we  consider  how  this  problem 
of  hfe  has  grown  upon  us  in  its  unearthly  aspects  as  re^ 


322  "  THE   WORLD    LIETH   IN   WICKEDNESS." 

vealed  in  the  Scriptures,  ■when  we  think  of  the  still  deeper 
mj^steries  that  have  come  out  of  such  revelation,  the  in- 
creased evidence  of  the  inconceivable  human  wickedness 
which  no  art  softens  and  no  science  subdues,  the  immense 
disproportion  yet  existing  between  earth's  scanty  wheat 
and  its  wild  overspreading  tares, —  Avhen  we  take  into  our 
minds  all  that  is  expressed  in  those  exhaustless  words  of 
Sci'ipture ,  "  the  world  lieth  in  ^Tickedness,"  "  the  creation 
groaneth  and  travaileth  in  pain," — in  view,  we  say,  of  a 
problem  presenting  such  aspects  as  these,  and  which  rev- 
elation, history,  and  experience,  have  brought  to  such  tre- 
mendous dimensions,  what  trifling,  like  the  trifling  of  some 
scientific  men  !  what  folly  can  be  greater  than  the  claim 
we  sometimes  hear  that  physical  science  is  to  remedy  all 
this,  or  (to  take  the  seemingly  more  pious  asssuption,) 
that  she  is  even  to  assist  the  cure  of  our  humanity  in 
the  character  either  of  a  concurrent  or  subordinate  rev- 
elation !  The  old  boasting  was  rational  when  compared 
with  this.  Science  then  was  in  its  infanc}^,  we  say  ; 
"  it  spake  as  a  child."  But  if  the  race  has  grown  to 
manhood  —  and  surely  under  the  pupilage  of  revelation 
it  should  have  taken  some  steps  toward  it — then 
"  should  we  put  away  childish  things."  ^Ye  know 
much  more  about  the  cave  in  which  we  dwell ;  we  have 
studied  much  more  carefully  the  shadows  that  come  and 
go  ujwn  its  dusky  walls  ;  we  have  discovered  some  order 
of  succession  among  them  to  which  we  give  the  name  of 
laws  ;  we  are  even  able,  in  many  cases,  to  vaticinate,  or 
tell  how  they  will  come  and  come  again,  or  make  their 
circuits  whilst  the  panorama  lasts,  or  the  scene  remains 
unchanged ;  as  the  eye  grows  keener,  too,  and  the  pupil 
enlarges  in  the  twilight,  we  see  ^continually  more  and 


MODERN  MORE  ABSURD  THAN  ANCIENT  BOASTING,    323 

more  that  had  escaped  our  previous  ken.     And  we  are 
verj  much  amused  with  all  this.     Some  get  wonderfully 
elated,  and  talk  of  "annihilating  space,"  and  "  subduin^ 
the  elements,"  and  "  taking  all  the  gloom  and  terror  ou° 
of  nature."     So  we  boast.     But  alas !  in  presence  of 
the  greater  question  that  ever  keeps  up  with  the  march 
of  natural  knowledge,  and  goes  before  it,  and  ever  con- 
fronts it  with  a  yet  sterner  aspect,  the  modern  is  stiU 
more  trifling,  still  more  absurd,  than  the  ancient  gascon- 
ade. ^  In  the  light  of  the  Scripture,  we  are  compelled  to 
say,  it  is  not  only  irrational,  but  profane ;  in  presence, 
too,  of  the  deeper  woes  of  humanity,  the  remedy  it  so 
boastingly  holds  out  is  as  heartless,  as  unfeeling,  as  it  is 
wholly  inadequate.     In  its  own  field,  as  pure  science,  it 
demands  our  respect  like  other  things  that  are  honest 
and  of  good  report;  but  when  it  assumes  to  be  religion, 
or  theology,  or  to  patronize  revelation,  it  demands  rebuke 
for  its  self-ignorance  and  presumption.     This  is  for  the 
present  age,  and  especially  for  our  own  country,  its  most 
harmful  aspect,  more  harmful,— it  is  one  of  our  deepest 
convictions  — than  any  direct  opposition  its  avowedly 
mfidel  votaries  have  made  to  the  Bible,  or  to  any  par- 
ticular portions  of  the  Bible. 

When  we  think  how  the  Church  is  yielding  to  it,  how 
much  it  is  doing  to  secularize  our  Christianity  and  give 
false  views  of  its  mission,  how  it  is  making  popular  un- 
scnptural  ideas  of  reform  having  their  ground  in  the 
commoda  vitce  rather  than  the  spiritual  health,  how  it 
IS  ever  marring  our  better  philosophy  by  the  rejection  of 
everythmg  that  can  not  be  thrown  into  the  crucible  of 
experiment  and  induction,  how  it  produces  now,  as  of 
old,  and  as  thougli  it  were  inseparable  from  this  kind 


324  NATURAL   THEOLOGY. 

of  knowledge,  a  vain-glorious  spirit  so  opposed  to  -what 
should  ever  be  the  humble  and  healthful  position  of  our 
humanity, —  how,  in  short,  it  is  ever  putting  the  earthly 
before  the  spiritual,  thus  breeding  a  wordliness  which 
even  its  most  sincere  professions  of  piety  can  not  coun- 
teract— in  view  of  all  this,  we  can  not  help  feeling  that 
one  of  the  most  unbiblical,  and  we  might  say,  anti-chris- 
tian,  aspects  of  the  present  time,  is  to  be  found  in  the 
extravagant  claims  and  undue  popular  estimate  of  physi- 
cal science.  The  age  is  most  one-sided  in  this  respect, 
and  needs  righting.  We  say  this  with  the  more  frank- 
ness and  sincerity,  because  we  are  equally  sincere  in  the 
admission,  the  glad  and  hopeful  admission,  that  some  of 
our  noblest  minds  and  truest  Christians  are  occupied  with 
this  department  of  human  knowledge.  May  their  ap- 
preciation of  higher  truths  prevent  the  evils  that  might 
come  from  the  disproportional  popular  tendency,  espe- 
cially as  that  undue  tendency  is  stimulated  by  the  loud- 
talking  in  their  own  ranks,  or  by  timid  religionists  who 
are  so  easily  flattered  or  awed  by  their  pretensions. 

A  similar  train  of  thought  is  applicable  to  much  that 
we  arc  so  fond  of  praising  in  modern  times  under  the 
name  of  natural  theology.  And  here,  to  prevent  misap- 
prehension of  our  meaning,  we  would  make  a  distinction 
which  must  come  home  to  the  common  understanding  of 
every  sound  and  unsophisticated  mind.  Nature  is  ever 
praising  God.  The  Scriptures  abound  in  the  thought. 
She  is  ever  telling  of  his  glory,  his  kingdom,  his  provi- 
dence, his  invisible  power  and  Godhead.  But  it  is  the 
fair,  round,  honest,  open  face  oi  nature  that  does  this, 
that  face  that  we  all  perceive  and  understand  at  once, — 
that  we  see  by  the  naked  eye  and  without  the  aid  of  sci- 


THE   UPPER   AXD   UNDER   SIDE   OF   NATURE.       325 

entific  glasses.  It  is  the  broad  earth,  and  sounding  sea, 
the  mountains  towering  high,  the  heaven  serene  above, 
the  sun  in  his  burning  strength,  the  moon  walking  in 
brightness,  each  knowing  its  place  in  the  firmament,  its 
glorious  rising  and  its  majestic  going  do;;!!, —  the  seasons 
as  they  roll,  the  countless  hosts  of  heaven  whom  He  call- 
eth  all  by  name  even  as  a  shepherd  knoweth  his  sheep. 
It  is  the  erect  up-gazing  form  of  man,  his  dominion  over 
all  the  lower  tribes  of  animation,  his  wondrous  outward 
frame  in  its  visible  beauty,  the  still  more  wondrous  soul 
that  shines  through  it  even  as  the  invisible  Spirit  of  God 
makes  itself  seen  in  the  material  creation.  It  is  this 
broad  fair  face  of  nature,  that  is  ever  "  telling  the  glory 
of  God."  So,  again,  on  the  other  hand,  could  we  get 
down  to  the  bottom  of  nature,  clean  through  it,  we  may 
say,  where  it  joins  on  to  the  supernatural,  or  lies  open  be- 
fore the  supernatural ;  could  we  get  do^vn  to  the  first 
causahties,  the  deep  primal  springs  where  the  touch  of 
the  Divine  hand  vibrates  through  all  her  immense  ma- 
chinery, conveying  his  general  or  special  commands,  yet 
without  any  breach  of  her  vast  length  of  serial  law,  to  us  so 
immeasurably  long,  to  Deity  quicker  than  the  hghtning's 
flash  ?  could  we  do  this  ;  could  we  ever  hope  to  do  this ; 
then,  perhaps,  we  might  hear  another  voice  of  nature, 
mightier  than  all  and  more  glorious  than  all  that  had  ever 
sounded  from  her  upper  surface,  or  the  side  that  God  has 
turned  to  us.  It  may  be,  that  we  shall  some  day  know 
this ;  at  some  remote  period  in  our  existence  we  may  be 
permitted  to  hear,  and  hear  directly,  without  links  or  in- 
ductions, this  deep  bass  in  the  universal  chorus.  But  we 
can  not  hear  it  now ;  we  have  no  organs  strong  enough 
to  bear  it,  or  even  to  receive  it ;  we  have  no  intellectual 

28 


326  THE   MID   REGION. 

strength  that  can  do  anything  more  than  take  a  few  feeble 
steps  in  an  immeasurable  journey  towards  it ;  it  is  hid 
from  our  sight,  far  away  from  our  thought ;  we  can  not 
even  approach  it  either  by  the  steady  march  of  the  under- 
standing, or  the  SAviftest  flight  of  the  swiftest  imagination. 
"We  have  presented  the  two  extremes.  There  is  a 
middle  region  which  is  "  neither  day  nor  night,"  or  rather 
where  there  is  just  light  enough  to  see  the  terrific  dark- 
ness. It  is  the  region  of  natural  theology,  to  use  the 
name  without  admitting  its  propriety ;  it  is  the  dark  laby- 
rinth of  physical  adaptations,  as  distinguished  from  ends, 
or  true  ultimate  designs.  As  we  descend  into  this  re- 
gion the  pure  upper  air  grows  dim.  As  we  get  down 
among  the  wheels  of  the  vast  machinery  we  lose  the  hght 
of  heaven  above,  and  yet  find  no  sure  standing  place  for 
our  groping  feet  below.  It  is  like  the  insect  who  has 
gone  down  into  the  interior  of  the  great  Haarlem  organ. 
He  is  crawling  among  pipes,  and  keys,  and  springs,  and 
pedals  ;  if  an  intelligent  insect — a  supposition  that  may 
be  rationally  entertained — he  may  be  deep  in  acoustics, 
estimating  the  times  of  aerial  pulsations,  or  measuring 
with  his  microscopic  eye  the  chords  that  subtend  vibrat- 
ing arcs ;  but  the  glorious  anthem  that  is  rolling  above 
is  all  unheard,  or  comes  to  him  only  in  dull  and  discord- 
ant tones.  The  comparison  is  not  extravagant.  Its  jus- 
tice has  been  verified  in  men  who  have  seen  nothing  but 
mathematics  in  the  heavens,  and  chemical  affinities  upon 
the  earth.  This  interior  anatomy  of  causation,  where 
there  is  nought  before  the  eye  but  passing  links,  joined 
letters  of  which  we  can  not  spell  the  words,  with  double 
readings,  too,  and  oft  times  double  interpretations,  may 
be  all  vcrv  curious  as  matter  of  inductive  science,  but  it 


ASTRONOMERS   HAVE   BEEN   ATHEISTS.  327 

is  certainly  unnecessary,  if  not  unfavorable,  to  faith. 
Especially  is  this  true  of  that  favorite  department  of  na- 
tural theology  which  is  now  so  much  occupied  with  the 
old  animal  and  vegetable  remains.  If  men  will  not  be- 
hove without  it,  they  will  certainly  not  be  led  to  beUeve 
by  it.  If  they  heed  not  that  fair  outspeaking  face,  if 
they  hear  not  that  mighty  voice  of  the  universal  living 
nature,  neither  will  they  be  persuaded  though  one  should 
lay  open  the  realm  of  the  dead,  and  bring  before  them 
the  fossil  ghosts  of  departed  ages.  The  mathematical 
ideas  of  the  heavens  are  m.ore  religious  than  these,  more 
nearly  allied  to  ftxith ;  but  who  does  not  know  that  the 
most  acute  astronomers  have  been  not  only  practical  but 
avowed  atheists  ?  Such  has  been  the  melancholy  result 
where  revelation  has  been  unacknowledged  and  the 
Church  despised, —  a  pretty  sure  indication  of  what 
may  be  expected  when  "  the  science  of  theology  or  the 
theology  of  science,"  to  use  a  play  of  language  which 
lately  called  down  plaudits  on  the  religious  hustings,  has 
become  preeminently  the  light  of  the  age. 

In  all  this,  however,  there  is  no  detraction  from  its 
real,  honest  value.  When  the  study  of  this  mid  region 
of  natural  adaptations  is  pursued  as  science  only,  it 
may  have  an  interest  making  it  worthy  of  our  most  earn- 
est effort.  We  are  looking  for  links,  and  we  are  reward- 
ed and  rejoice  in  finding  that  for  which  we  are  looking. 
When  thus  regarded,  as  science,  we  may  say  of  it,  too, 
that  it  is  safe  ;  it  will  not  cheat  the  soul  with  idola.  But 
make  it  a  part  of  theology,  call  it  religion,  and  it  is  a  con- 
tinual breeder  of  darkness,  producing  delusions,  spectra, 
phasmata,  cheating  appearances  of  ends  that  are  never 
ends  but  links,  of  seeming  designs  that  are  only  endless 


328  NATURAL   THEOLOGY   IS  NOT   RELIGION. 

adaptations,  such  as  the  pantheist,  the  man  who  holds  to 
nothing  higher  than  voC?,  or  intelligence,  in  the  universe, 
or  even  certain  forms  of  self-acknowledged  atheism  would 
be  ready  to  admit.  Make  it  a  part  of  religion,  we  say, 
and  doubt  is  its  natural  product.  We  are  in  the  deep 
waters,  and  the  only  safety  against  overwhelming  scepti- 
cism is  in  not  thinking  at  all,  or  at  least  beyond  the  pre- 
sent links,  the  particular,  sequences  that  present  them- 
:3elves  to  our  observation.  The  eye  must  never  be  turn- 
(3d  from  the  immediate  passing  adaptations.  One  must 
hQ  satisfied  with  this  ;  like  the  man  in  the  labyrinth,  who 
■'is  contented  with  taking  angles  and  feeling  the  width  of 
passages,  or  the  zoologist  who  has  caught  a  curious  fish 
without  any  ventral  fins,  and  is  in  raptures  at  the  dis- 
covery of  the  means  by  which  the  poor  animal  contrives 
to  move  itself  along,  and  make  the  best  of  its  want.  But 
our  man  of  science  is  too  ambitious  to  be  thus  content. 
He  has  discovered  mere  adaptation,  and  he  admires  it  as 
that  very  wisdom  which  inspiration  declares  can  not  be 
•"  found  in  the  deep,"  whether  it  be  of  the  earth  or  the 
craters.  The  old  philosopher  would  say  it  was  nature 
accommodating  itself  to  circumstances  ;  but  neither  of 
them  can  answer,  or  begin  to  answer,  the  higher  ques- 
tion involved,  not  in  the  structure,  but  in  the  end  for 
which  the  animal  himself  was  made,  or  tell  us  why  ani- 
mals were  made  at  all, —  especially  why  made  to  suffer 
pain  and  dying  agony.  The  old  follower  of  Democritus 
was  called  an  atheist,  but  what  of  the  name  ?  As  fiir  as 
any  piety  is  concerned,  or  devout  religious  feeling,  or 
any  true  faith  in  a  true  divine  wisdom,  believed  though 
unseen,  both  are  on  a  par.  Both  have  equal  need  of 
revelation  here,  and  without  it  we  have  little  reason  to 


SOCRATES  —  PALEY  —  THE   BIBLE.  329 

regard  the  naturalizing  theism  of  the  one  as  any  bet- 
ter than  the  atheistic  naturaUsm  of  the  other.  Such  is 
one  and  a  true  aspect  of  what  is  called  natural  theology. 
Even  Bacon,  the  great  modern  authority,  warned  his  dis- 
ciples against  it.  He  saw  the  danger  of  turning  the 
mind  from  the  study  of  the  true  '■'■final  causes,''^  when  this 
transcending  name  should  be  given,  as  it  is  now  given,  to 
mere  links  in  nature.  And  experience  is  here  with  the 
Father  of  the  modern  philosophy.  Without  great  care, 
the  exclusive  search  for  physical  adaptations  breeds  instead 
of  curing  scepticism.  When  the  argument  is  confined  to 
those  leading  facts  that  are  common  to  all  minds,  it  has 
its  highest  power  ;  it  is  conclusive.  The  moment  we 
begin  to  dive  into  nature,  to  bring  up  from  the  abyss 
that  truth  which  is  all  around  and  should  be  ever  in  us, 
that  moment  the  argument  begins  to  lose  its  strength  ;  its 
light  begins  to  fade.  Hence  the  minute  pains-taking  of 
Paley,  going  into  the  very  arcana  of  the  human  system, 
is  so  much  less  convincing  than  the  unsurpassed  argu- 
ment of  Socrates  in  the  Memorabilia,  or  the  admirable 
imitation  of  it  by  Cicero  in  his  treatise  De  Natura  Deo- 
rum.  Above  all,  how  does  everything  of  the  kind  pale 
before  the  short  Bible  argument  of  the  Ninety-fourth 
Psalm  — "  He  that  formed  the  eye  shall  he  not  seeP  He 
that  formed  the  ear  shall  he  not  hear  ?  He  that  teacheth 
man  hioivledge''^ — shall  he  not  knoiv?  as  is  so  distinctly 
answered,  not  in  words,  but  in  the  expressive  aposiopesis, 
or  silence,  of  the  Hebrew.  But  even  this  inimitable  ar- 
gument, it  will  be  seen  from  the  context,  is  not  for  the 
existence  of  a  God,  but  rather  as  a  proof  of  his  sure  prov- 
idential justice.  How  shall  we  account  for  the  strikiniJ- 
fact,  that  the  mode  of  reasoning  now  so  popular  under  the 
28* 


330        THE  LATTER  CHAPTERS  OF  JOB. 

name  of  natural  tlicologv,  is  so  rare,  so  almost  wholly  un- 
kno^Yn,  we  might  rather  say,  in  the  Holy  Scriptures  ? 
How  comes  it  that  Christ  never  employs  it,  that  Apostles 
and  Prophets,  in  all  they  have  to  say  of  the  divine  wisdom, 
and  in  all  their  calls  to  the  adoration  of  the  divine  provi- 
dence, never  resort  to  proof  from  this  adaptation  of  natu- 
ral causalities,  although  they  so  frequently  appeal  to 
natural  objects  as  illustrations,  or  personified  witnesses, 
of  the  divine  glory  ? 

In  Jeremiah  viii,  7,  there  is  mention  of  the  instincts 
and  habits  of  animals.  But  look  at  the  real  thought, 
and  we  find  in  it  no  attempt  at  proof  of  the  divine  exist- 
ence, nor  any  argument  for  the  divine  designs  in  nature. 
The  lesson  taught  is  the  insensibihty  and  rebellion  of 
man  — "  Yea,  the  stork  in  the  heavens  knoweth  'her  ap- 
pointed times,  and  the  turtle,  and  the  crane,  and  the  sical- 
loiv  watch  the  time  of  their  coning  ;  hut  my  people  knoiv 
not  the  judgment  of  the  Lord.^^  A  similar  remark  is 
applicable  to  the  striking  examples  in  the  latter  chapters 
of  Job.  AU  that  is  said  of  Behemoth,  and  Leviathan, 
;and  the  wild  goats  of  the  rock,  is  grandly  descriptive, 
brought  forth  in  illustration  of  the  divine  glory  —  as  we 
have  before  remarked  about  nature  in  general — and  es- 
pecially of  the  absolute  divine  sovereignty  — 'that  sublime 
doctrine  to  which  the  naturalist  or  the  mere  rationalist  is 
ever  so  averse.  It  is  the  assertion  of  God's  power  and 
right  to  do  and  make  things  as  it  pleases  him,  which  is 
there  so  strongly  set  forth,  even  to  the  stumbling  of  many 
who  can  see  neither  moral  nor  philosophy  in  it.  It  is  to 
overwhelm  us  with  this  thought.  Instead  of  being  a  les- 
son of  adaptive  design,  or  of  instruction  in  the  mysteries 
of  the  divine  ways  in  nature,  it  would  seem  rather  to 


A  REVELATION  IN  WHAT  IS  niDDEN.     831 

teacli  the  great  truth,  elsewhere  so  strildnglj  conveyed, 
that  "  it  is  the  glory  of  God  to  conceal  a  matter,"  and 
that  thus,  paradoxical  as  it  may  appear,  there  may  be  a 
most  impressive  revelation  even  in  what  he  hides  from 
our  view.  The  whole  passage  would  seem  intended  to 
silence  rather  than  explain, —  to  silence  those  "who 
would  darken  counsel  by  Avords  without  knowledge,"  and 
who  will  not  believe  in  the  divine  wisdom  unless  they  can 
see  it  with  their  eyes.  It  is  to  produce  the  very  effect 
it  did  produce  on  the  mind  of  Job  —  "  I  know  that  Thou 
canst  do  everythiyig,  and  that  no  thought  can  he  ivithliold- 
en  from  Thee  ;  I  have  uttered  that  which  I  understood 
not,  things  too  ivonderfal  for  me  wldcli  I  Itnoio  not : 
Wherefore  1  ahhor  myself  and  repent  in  dust  and  ash- 
es.^' Does  natural  science,  or  zoology,  or  that  which  is 
called  natural  theology,  thus  humble  a  man,  or  does  all 
experience  of  the  world  show  that  it  is  a  kind  of  know- 
ledge that,  as  far  as  it  is  not  counteracted  by  other  influ- 
ences, has  just  the  contrai-y  effect  ?  What  the  naturalist 
would  call  evidence  of  adaptive  skill,  as  prdof  of  the  divine 
existence,  is  far  remote  from  all  these  examples.  In 
reading  them  we  hardly  think  of  it,  the  soul  is  so  occu- 
pied with  other  and  more  majestic  ideas.  Still  farther 
removed  from  every  feeling  which  these  chapters  inspire, 
is  the  modern  talk  about  utilities,  or  contrivances  to  pro- 
duce happiness,  or  greatest  quantity  of  well  feeling  (for 
it  all  comes  to  that)  in  the  greatest  amount  of  animated 
or  sensational  matter.  God  is  good  —  God  is  merciful. 
The  Bible  teaches  that  abundantly  ;  but  how  different  its 
illustrations  and  proofs  of  it  from  those  which  naturalism 
would  present  as  its  best  evidence,  although,  to  a  think- 
ing mind,  there  is  hardly  one  among  these  supposed  phy- 


332  "great  are  the  works  of  the  lord." 

sical  utilities,  or  apparatus  for  enjoyment,  that  is  not  in 
itself,  and  aside  from  higher  considerations,  suggestive  of 
a  greater  doubt  and  a  greater  difficulty  than  it  removes  ? 
Alas,  for  us,  if  we  had  to  prove  the  preponderance  and 
predominance  of  good  from  no  better  evidence  than  is 
furnished  by  nature  and  the  world — especially  our  world 
—  aside  from  any  implanted  a  priori  ideas  of  the  soul,  or 
any  express  revelation  from  the  sphere  above  ! 

"  Great  are  the  loorha  of  the  Lord^  sought  out  of  all 
who  have  jjleasiure  therein.''''  Naturalism  has  sometimes 
usurped  the  text,  although  it  is  entitled  to  only  the  small- 
est part  of  it.  It  is  taken  as  the  motto  of  a  lecture,  oc- 
casionally of  a  scientific  book.  This  is  pardonable,  and 
perhaps  commendable.  Another  use  does  not  strike  us 
as  being  quite  so  proper.  It  is  sometimes  found  at  the 
head  of  a  sermon,  so  called,  which  does  the  Scriptures 
the  honor  of  selecting  from  them  a  text,  whilst  its  sub- 
stance, if  substance  there  be,  is  made  up  from  geology, 
and  telegraphs,  and  the  wonderful  discoveries  and  inven- 
tions of  the  age.  But  what  are  these  "  works  of  the 
Lord"  ?  The  context  will  show  us.  They  are  his  works 
of  empire  and  of  providence,  his  dealings  in  history,  above 
all,  his  worka  of  grace ^  to  use  an  old  fashioned  term  which 
progress  is  beginning  to  render  obsolete.  They  are  his 
glorious  deeds  as  recorded  in  the  annals  of  the  chosen 
people,  his  mindfulness  of  his  covenant,  the  redemption 
of  his  elect,  the  final  triumph  of  tliat  Church  for  which 
the  world  was  made,  and  for  whose  sake  alone  its  physi- 
cal as  well  as  its  social  and  political  order  are  preserved. 
These  are  the  "  works  of  the  Lord"  which  a  naturalizing 
theology  is  so  inclined  to  iimore,  especially  as  they  appear 
jn  their  Scriptural  aspect.     And  hence  comes  it  that 


"  BIBLE  OF  nature"  —  "  BOOK  OF  THE  ROCKS."  333 

where  this  naturalizing  spirit  prevails,  or  this  naturalizing 
faith,  as  we  might  call  it  hy  way  of  accommodation,  there 
the  pure  Scriptural  faith  declines.  If  the  latter  does  not 
go  wholly  out,  it  becomes  a  weak  and  inefficient  power, 
a  mere  light  make-weight  to  something  else,  which,  al- 
though not  consciously  avowed  as  the  controlling  influ- 
ence, is  yet  predominant  in  the  secular  creed  and  secu- 
larizing spirit  of  the  times, —  in  short,  a  system  of  theo- 
logy so  purely  and  wholly  natural,  so  mixed  up  with 
science,  and  progress,  and  evei*ything  else,  that  the  old 
student  of  Baxter  or  Pascal  would  hardly  know  its  face 
as  taught  in  some  of  our  seminaries,  and  held  forth  in 
not  a  few  of  our  pulpits.  The  Baconian  is  a  man  of  facts, 
and  we  appeal  to  him  to  solve  the  problem,  and  to  answer 
the  question  that  so  naturally  suggests  itself.  Faith  in 
the  Scriptures  as  the  highest  authority  for  the  soul  in  all 
things  wherein  it  speaks,  love  for  the  Scriptures,  deep 
study  of  the  Scriptures, —  do  these  increase  with  the  na- 
turalism of  an  age,  whether  it  take  to  itself  the  name  of 
science,  or  of  natural  theology,  or  of  natural  religion  ? 
But  we  do  not  need  the  Baconian  with  his  arraj^  of  induc- 
tive and  crucial  experiments.  Every  hitelligently  seri- 
ous man  knows  that  but  one  answer  can  be  given  to  such 
question,  and  what  that  answer  is.  What  makes  it  worse, 
is  the  fact,  that  in  proportion  as  the  real  revelation  falls 
into  a  collateral  and  even  subordinate  position  of  autho- 
rity, there  is  growing  up  this  cant  about  the  other,  or  as 
it  has  been  styled,  "  the  Elder  Scripture,"  the  Bible  of 
Nature,  the  "  Book  of  the  Rocks."  The  lamentably  per- 
verted use  of  the  word  inspiration,  in  certain  transcen- 
dental quarters,  is  bad  enough,  but  it  is  more  defensible, 
and  less  mischievous,  than  that  corresponding  abuse  of 


334      INTELLECTUAL  POWER   OF  THE   SCRIPTURES. 

the  term  revelation  wliich  is  such  a  favorite  with  a  cer- 
tain kind  of  naturalizing  orthodoxy.  "VVe  say  more  de- 
fensible, inasmuch  as  poetry  and  philosophy  are  above 
science,  more  divine  than  science,  even  as  the  spiritual 
transcends  the  physical,  and  emotional,  or  living  ideas, 
are  higher  things  than  any  inductive  knowledge.   • 

For  "  the  restoration  of  belief,"  the  age  must  return  to 
the  study  of  the  Bible.  Recourse,  too,  must  be  had  to  the 
same  inexhaustible  fountain,  not  only  for  the  strengthen- 
ing of  faith,  but  to  elevate  the  general  mind  and  general 
thinking.  The  holiness  of  the  Scriptures  even  the  infi- 
del is  compelled  to  acknowledge.  Their  heavenly  beauty 
touches  the  devout  spirit  now,  even  as  it  affected  the 
soul  of  the  Psalmist  when  he  said,  '''■Thy  word,  0  Lord, 
is  very  'pure,  therefore  thy  servant  loveth  itJ^  But  it 
has  another,  we  will  not  say  a  higher,  mission.  Even  in 
the  mere  intellectual  aspect,  the  Bible  is  before  all  other 
means  of  spiritual  culture.  As  a  continual  suggester  of 
new  ideas,  or  as  shedding  a  new  glory  on  old  and  com- 
mon thoughts,  there  is  nothing  to  be  compared  with  it  in 
the  whole  range  of  outward  knowledge.  "TAe  entrance 
of  Thy  word  giveth  light,  it  giveth  understanding.^^  It 
is  that  by  which  we  see  the  light  of  other  things.  Let 
the  head  be  bowed  upon  the  sacred  page,  let  the  mind 
be  brought  into  docile  yet  intense  communion  with  it, 
and  there  will  flow  forth  from  the  study  of  one  Epistle  of 
Paul,  or  even  of  one  Psalm  of  David,  a  power  of  thought, 
of  ever-widening,  ever-rising  thought,  of  thought  beget- 
ting thought,  transcending  any  intellectual  effect  that 
might  be  expected  from  any  department  of  natural  sci- 
ence, or  any  chapter  in  natural  theology.  There  would 
be  this  growth,  this  invigoration  of  mind,  in  the  proper 


RESTORATION   OF   FAITH.  335 

study,  of  our  noble  Anglo  Saxon  version ;  still  richer  and 
stronger  would  it  be,  could  the  soul  feed  directly  on  those 
roots  of  heavenly  marrow  that  are  furnished  by  the  noble 
tongues  the  divine  wisdom  has  chosen  as  the  first  media 
of  its  revelation. 

Could  we  make  our  readers  feel  that  there  is  some 
truth  in  these  views,  some  valuable  truth  that  ought  to 
be  proclaimed  and  strongly  urged  —  could  we  convince 
any  of  them  heartily  that  this  Bible  study,  with  such  a 
feeling  in  it,  is  the  great  want  of  our  age,  and  that  it 
would  be  the  most  effectual  means  for  the  restoration  of 
faith  when  outward  aids  from  nature  and  from  science 
had  all  failed, —  we  should  feel  that  we  had  rendered 
them  an  important  service,  however  one-sided  might  ap- 
pear the  writer's  own  zeal  in  the  substance  or  manner  of 
his  argument. 


336  WHAT   IS   NATURE 


CHAPTER  XI. 


WHAT   IS   NATURE  t 

Gan  there  he  a  True  Nature'^ — The  two  Great  Questions — 
Hotv  can  there  be  Evil  without  God  ? — IIoio  can  there  he 
a  Nature  that  is  not  God  ? —  Ca7i  God  make  a  Nature  to 
go  hy  itself? — Laws  of  Thinking,  higher  than  Latvs  of  Na- 
ture— Deteriorations  in  Nature —  Was  there  Death  before 
Adam's  faW? — Nature  as  well  as  Spirit  left  to  itself — In 
what  Sense  ? — 3fotion  by  Impulse — The  Axiom,  "  A  Body 
once  set  in  Motion  will  forever  continue  in  Motion" — The 
Mystery  of  the  Rolling  J^all — Forte — Is  it  an  Entity  ? — 
Science  finds  Formulas — Philosophy  Wonders — Faith 
Adores — Ideas,  as  ivell  as  Laws,  in  Nature. 

Can  there  be  a  true  nature  ?  What  is  a  nature  ?  Has 
nature,  or  what  we  call  by  that  name,  in  any  sense  a 
proprium,  or  self-hood  ?  Is  it  an  entity,  a  power  by  it- 
self, made  to  be  by  itself,  or  is  it  ever,  and  in  all  its 
parts  and  manifestations,  an  effect  of  an  immediate,  im- 
manent divine  working  never  leaving,  never  intermitting, 
never  varying  as  to  its  immanent  presence,  in  space, 
time,  or  degree  ?  Thus  stated — and  we  can  not  state  it 
more  precisely — it  may  be  called  the  second  great  prob- 
lem for  the  world's  thinking.  For  next  to  the  question, 
How  can  there  be  evil,  real  and  not  merely  relational 
or  apparent  evil,  without  God  being,  in  some  way,  the 
author  of  it  ?  is  this  other  question,  How  can  there  be  a 


IS  NATURE  ONLY  APPARENT?        337 

nature,  a  true  in  distinction  from  an  apparent  nature, 
in  other  words,  a  nature  or  a  world  coming  from  God, 
wliicli  is  yet  not  God, —  or  how  can  it  possess  any  entity 
of  itself,  or  be  anything  distinct  from  the  divine  power 
regarded  as  energizing  as  immanently,  and  as  immedi- 
ately, in  its  continuance,  as  in  its  birth  and  primal  activ- 
ity ?  Some  men,  in  discussing  the  first  of  these  two 
questions,  annihilate  evil.  The  mysterious  problem 
dwindles  down  into  an  easy  formula  of  optimism.  The 
profound  analytical  expression  involves  simply  an  identi- 
cal proposition,  as  the  mathematicians  call  it.  After  all 
its  evolutions  and  eliminations,  it  runs  out  x^=x.  Evil 
is  only  apparent.  So,  too,  do  some  deal  with  the  other 
great  enquiry.  The  result  is,  nature  is  only  apparent, — 
apparent  in  the  most  unreal  or  pantheistical  sense,  as 
representing  nothing  between  the  appearance  and  God. 
They  make  it  simply  the  common  instead  of  the  uncom- 
mon divine  manifestation.  The  natural  and  the  super- 
natural have  no  real  difference.  God's  immediate 
power  carries  on  every  part  of  the  process.  All  the  ap- 
parently intermediate  steps  are  as  directly  his  as  the 
beginning ;  he  is  as  much,  and  in  the  same  sense,  the 
immediate  pervading  agent,  as  he  is  the  originating 
cause,  and  sustaining  ground.  In  other  words,  there  is 
no  real  nature,  no  real  birth  of  one  thing  from  another, 
no  true  natural  or  intermediate  causality.  It  is  only  an 
appearance,  a  false  appearance,  too ;  for  it  seems  to  re- 
present some  mediate  power,  when  there  is  really  no 
such  mediation  between  the  appearance  and  Deity ;  — 
all  the  apparent  links  being  as  much  immediate,  and,  in 
one  sense,  outward  to  each  other,  (that  is,  without  real 
connection,)  as  the  one  chronologically  first ;  —  every 

29 


338  IDEA   AND   IDOLON, 

movement  of  every  wheel  and  cog  being  direct  from  the 
touching  hand  of  the  machine-maker,  although,  for  the 
purpose  of  confounding  and  deceiving  the  beholder,  he 
brings  out  these  immediate  tactual  effects  in  an  order  of 
sequence  suggestive  of  real,  inward,  connective  causality. 
Reduced  to  its  logical  positions,  this  is  the  view  presented 
in  the  Andover  articles  entitled  "  Science  and  the  Bible." 
In  his  attempt  to  talk  piously  about  God  in  nature,  and 
to  make  others  appear  atheistical,  the  writer,  without 
seeming  to  be  aware  of  it,  runs  down  into  sheer,  undiluted 
pantheism. 

On  this  view,  too,  m-atter  would  be  only  an  appearance, 
—  not  a  cpftivo'fXEvov  representing  a  real  power,  but  a  cpiv- 
TaCfia,  in  other  Avords,  a  lying  appearance,  or  apparition, 
suggesting  the  thought  of  an  inward  energizing  entity  that 
has  no  real  existence.  So,  also,  the  world  is  just  such 
an  appearance,  or  phantasm.  Far  from  having  the  rank 
or  religious  dignity  of  Plato's  idea,  of  which  some  are  so 
much  afraid,  it  is  only  an  idolon,  an  umbra,  or  shadow 
without  any  object,  a  lying  appearance,  we  say  again, 
without  anything  that  appears.  What  is  worse  than  all, 
as  far  as  this  argument  is  concerned,  creation  disappears. 
If  there  is  not  a  nature  made,  and  then  in  some  way 
"  left  to  itself,"  (the  expression  which  is  so  much  object- 
ed to,)  then  is  there  no  difference  conceivable  between 
the  starting  and  the  on-going.  Then,  also,  of  course,  cre- 
ation is  as  much  going  on  now  and  everywhere,  both  in 
time  and  space,  as  it  was  in  the  beginning, —  whether  the 
great  or  any  other  beginning. 

But  this  annihilation  of  nature,  causality,  creation,  and 
the  world,  can  not  stop  even  here.  It  must  push  on  until 
it  takes  the  position  that  God  can  not  make  a  nature,  a 


A   NATURE   LEFT   TO   ITSELF.  339 

causality,  a  world  objective  and  real.  He  can  not  make 
them  in  any  sense  self-existent,  or  possessing  anything  that 
may  be  called  a  self-hood,  or  that  may  in  any  way  be  said 
to  be  left  to  itself,  by  any  withdrawal,  in  any  degree,  of 
the  prime  originating  power.  We  say,  in  any  degree;  for 
the  same  difficulty  attends  a  less  or  a  greater  withdrawal. 
If  in  any  of  the  passing  phenomena  of  nature,  there  is, 
in  any  way,  lesB  of  the  divine  power  and  presence  than 
in  the  creative  start,  then  something,  or  some  part,  or 
some  degree  of  the  subsequent  on-going  is  "  left  to  itself," 
as  truly,  though  not  to  the  same  extent,  as  though  there 
had  been  a  greater  withdrawal.  It  comes,  then,  to  this 
—  God  could  not  make  a  nature  ;  He  could  not  give  a 
power  and  a  law  that  could,  in  any  sense,  go  by  them- 
selves ;  for  we  can  just  as  easily  conceive  and  believe, 
that  God  is  matter,  as  that  he  is  an  immanent  force,  or 
that  the  one  is  any  the  less  a  created,  on-going,  ex-isting 
entity,  than  the  other.  In  other  words,  he  could  not  so 
make  this  power  and  law  as  to  Avork  out  an  idea  without 
his  own  immediate  finger  touching,  like  an  engraver's 
tool,  at  every  point  and  particle  of  the  picture.  We 
must  come  to  this,  or  stop  in  the  position  that  a  pious 
science  has  called  naturalism. 

Now  should  any  one  turn  upon  us  and  ask,  Can  you 
show  how  this  can  be  done, —  how  God  can  make  a  real 
nature  that  is  not  himself?  The  answer  would  be 
promptly.  No.  Our  thoughts  do  not  reach  an  infinitesi- 
mal distance  towards  the  solution  of  the  mystery.  Hoiu 
it  is  we  can  not  know,  can  not  even  conceive ;  but  the 
fact  we  are  compelled  to  admit, —  the  fact  that  God 
could  make  such  a  nature,  or  world,  or  system  of  forces, 
as  something  in  time  self-existent,  having  a  temporal 


340   LAWS  OF  THOUGHT  HIGHER  THAN  NATURE. 

self-hood,  a  spatial  being,  a  life  or  motion  exhibiting  suc- 
cession of  e-vent  or  out-coming,  or,  in  some  true  way, 
"  going  by  itself,"  after  He  had  thus  made  it  to  go  by  itself. 
And  why,  then,  do  we  beUeve  it  ?  It  is  in  obedience, 
we  answer,  to  higher  laws  than  the  laws  of  nature,  even 
the  laws  of  the  soul's  thinking,  the  laws  of  our  rational 
thinking,  which  God  also  made,  but  did  not  make  them 
to  deceive  us.  We  are  compelled  to  admit  it,  because 
■we  can  not  think  God,  and  think  a  world,  without  it. 
-In  no  other  way  can  we  keep  both  ideas.  We  are  com- 
ipelled  to  admit  it,  or  lose  something  else  which  we  can 
:not  part  with  without  losing  that  which  gives  all  truth  its 
only  moral,  and,  we  might  also  say,  philosophical  value. 
Above  all  this  —  above  all  the  laws  of  sense  induction, 
above  even  the  higher  laws  of  our  thinking  —  by  faith  do 
we  hold  to  these  "unseen"  and  never  to  be  seen  entities 
which  are  neither  God  nor  matter,  though  coming  from 
God,  and  from  which  "  unseen  things  are  made  the  things 
that  do  appear."* 

*  It  has  been  heM  that  these  "  unseen  tilings,"  from  which  the  worlds 
ill  time  (touj  aiwi/aj)  were  made,  or  generated  Oysyovsvat^,  Rre  shn- 
[ily  an  expression  for  the  divine  power  generally.  But  doe."  it  look  like 
it?  Would  it  be  an  easy  and  natural  phraseology  for  that  idea?  Take 
the  passage  in  Hebrews  either  way,  it  comes  to  very  much  the  same  thing. 
Whether  we  read  "  Were  not  made  of  things  that  do  appear,"  or  "  Were 
made  of  tilings  not-appearing"  it  would  give  us  the  same  idea.  When, 
too,  we  bear  in  mind  the  mode  of  employing  the  negative  particles  in  He- 
brew, and  its  influence  on  the  New  Testament  Greek,  we  may  regard  the 
old  Versions,  and  cspeciallj-  the  Syriac,  as  having  made  the  right  transla- 
tion, whether  they  read  ly.  iiri,  or  [Iyj  £x.  Now  this,  in  either  aspect,  is 
uot  the  natural  mode  of  saying  that  things  fccn  were  made  of  nothing,  foi* 
which  the  proper  words  would  be  jH'il  ovTog,  or  jxv^  o'vtwv.  Again — why 
the  plural  form,  whether  we  take  it,  "things  unseen,"  or  read,  "not  from 
things  seen."  If  it  means  the  divine  power  generallj',  which  is  an  unicine 
or  undivided  idea,  how  do  we  account  for  this  mode  of  speech,  which  would 


GOD   IX   NATURE.  342 

But  no  finite  mind  can  anj  more  solve  the  problem 
than  It  can  solve  the  similar  problem  of  evil.     It  pre- 
cisely resembles  that  great  question  in  this,  that  who- 
ever chooses  to  take  the  verj  easy  position,  and  the  very 
easj  task,  of  assailant,  can  drive,  or  seem  to  drive  his 
antagonist  to  the  wall  bj  asking  questions  he  can  not 
answer,  or  bj  deducing  conclusions  which  no  definitions 
drawn  from  what  we  see  and  know  by  sense,  or  sense 
induction,  can  fully  exclude.     This  is  very  easy  work  • 
It  IS  also  very  foolish  work.     Its  folly  appears  in  the  fact^ 
that  the  assailed  party,  who  would  hold  the  real  exist- 
ence  either  of  evil  or  of  nature,  may  turn  right  round 
and  drive  his  antagonist  to  the  wall  by  a  like  series  of 
una,nswerable  questions,  involving  logical  difiiculties  pre- 
cisely similar,  until  he  is  compelled  to  give  up  the  idea 
of  any  nature  at  all,  or  of  a  world  as  anything  difierent 
trom  the  originating,  sustaining  Deity. 
^^  It  may  be  remarked,  here,  that  this  fine  rhetoric  about 
(xod  m  nature,"  which  is  such  a  favorite  with  many  of 
our  sentimentalists,  scientific  and  religious,  is  not  in  the 
Bible  style.     God  is  omnipresent;  but  there  is  every 
where  recognized  in  the  Scriptures  a  real  nature  with  its 
tremendous  self-acting  forces  "  fulfilHng  His  Word  "     It 
IS  this  which  imparts  their  inexpressible  sublimity  to  so 
many  passages  in  the  Old  Testament.     These  declara- 

ast    between  two  classes  of  things,  the  seen  and  unseen.)  the  mult  n 
uty,  the  conceptzon  of  n,edia,  or  means  ...  ,ui,us,  are  all  unaccounted  fo' 

29* 


342  NATURE   OBEYING   GOD. 

tions  are  not  all  poetry,  and  if  any  of  them  are  poetry, 
they  are  the  poetry  of  Heaven  and  mean  something. 
"  The  Lord  was  not  in  the  tvind  which  rent  the  moun- 
tains and  brake  the  rock  in  pieces"  before  the  Prophet's 
vision  ;  "  Re  was  not  in  the  earthquake;  he  was  not  in 
the  fire."  And  yet  most  subUme  it  is,  most  true  it  is, 
and  no  figure,  that  ^^  He  maketli  the  icinds  his  messen- 
gers, his  servant  the  flaming  fire."  God  is  not  electri- 
city, nor  immediately  energizing  in  every  movement  of 
electricity,  and  yet  most  sublime  it  is,  and  truer  than 
any  figure, —  ^^  He  calleth  for  his  thunders,  and  they 
come  forth  and  say  —  Behold  us  —  Sere  we  are." 

The  other  doctrine  of  nature  is  one  we  are  compelled 
to  admit  from  the  necessary  laws  of  our  thinking.  It 
ceases  to  be  nature  when  conceived  of  in  any  other  way. 
Though  condemned  by  the  Andover  authority,  it  has  been 
maintained  by  the  wisest  of  the  ancient  and  modern  think- 
ers. Bacon  and  Cudworth  both  teach  it,  although,  in 
other  respects,  they  represented  two  such  different  schools. 
We  must,  in  some  way,  have  a  self-subsistence  in  nature, 
.as  something  given  to  nature,  and  which  God  could  give 
to  nature,  whether  we  can  explain  the  method  and  the 
rationale  of  it  or  not.  There  may  be  this  self-hood,  and 
yet  God  the  supporting  ground,  as  he  is  the  supporting 
ground  even  of  spirit.  We  may  not  be  able  to  explain 
"the  difference  between  this  supporting  ground  and  a  con- 
stant immediate  energizing  in  every  act  of  nature,  but 
such  difference  there  must  be,  whether  «e  can  see  it, 
and  understand  it,  or  not.  The  proof  is  in  the  higher 
laws  of  our  thinking,  we  say  again.  There  must  be  a 
nature,  or  we  fall  into  a  pantheism  where  the  moral  and 
the  physical  both  perish.     But  a  nature,  as  such,  can  be 


NATURES    TEND    TO   DETERIORATION.  8^3 

thought  in  no  other  way.  Therefore,  there  is  a  nature 
having  a  hfe  of  its  own,  a  subsistence  of  its  own,  impart- 
ed to  it, —  a  nature  in  some  true  sense  going  of  itself, — 
and,  therefore,  having  both  growth  and  deterioration. 

In  the  other  vokime,  such  a  doctrine  of  nature  was 
presented  to  show,  not  only  the  fact,  but,  in  some  sense, 
the  need  of  periods  in  the  creative  work, —  that  is,  if 
God  chooses  to  work  by  the  method  of  natures  or  growths 
as  it  appears  from  the  Scriptures  he  has  done.  Thus 
viewed,  the  constant  tendency  of  nature,  or  a  nature, 
general  or  partial,  to  degenerate  from  the  primal  force, 
(or,  in  other  words,  when  thus  left  to  itself  to  manifest  its 
necessary  finitmiess')  —  this,  taken  in  connection  with 
God's  from  time  to  time  renewing  it,  and  even  superna- 
turally  raising  it  to  a  higher  law  than  before,  may  be  re- 
garded as  constituting  those  periods  of  torpor  and  revi- 
viscence  which  are  so  appropriately  styled  evenings  and 
mornings.  This  attempt  at  explanation  may  be  a  fail- 
ure ;  but  certainly  the  theism  of  the  argument  is  unim- 
peachable. If  such  an  interpretation  of  Scripture  is 
wrong,  it  should  be  shown  to  be  wrong  both  philosophi- 
cally and  exegetically.  That  was  the  true,  as  well  as 
the  manly  way  of  refuting  it,  instead  of  frightening  good 
Christian  people  with  such  an  unscientific  outcry  of  "  na- 
turahsm,"  and  "  Platonism,"  and  the  "  eternity  of  mat- 
ter," and  other  horrid  spectres  of  a  similar  kind. 

From  this,  too,  comes  the  position  that  in  all  natures, 
thus  left  to  themselves,  the  result,  if  unchecked,  is,  at 
some  time  or  other,  death  or  disorganization.  God  makes 
a  nature  to  go  by  itself,  but  not  forever  by  itself.  Every 
exception  by  which  a  natural  thing,  or  a  spiritual  thing 
connected  with  a  nature,  is  exempted  from  this  law  of 


344        LIFE   PROMISED   TO  ADAM   BY   COVENANT. 

finiteness,  and  hence  of  decay,  is  by  special  covenant. 
And  this  is  applied  to  show  the  absurdity,  the  unscrip- 
tural  as  well  as  logical  absurdity,  of  views  like  that  of 
Mr.  Lord,  which  maintains  that  there  could  have  been 
no  death  in  the  animal  races  before  the  fall  of  Adam. 
Geology  is  charged  with  impiety  for  pretending  to  find 
evidence  of  any  such  thing ;  but  he  might  just  as  well 
have  maintained  it  of  the  vegetable  world.  The  Bible 
gives  no  sanction  to  such  a  view.  Mr.  Lord,  with  all 
his  determination  to  be  orthodox,  has  departed  from  the 
doctrine  ever  maintained  in  the  Church,  that  the  immor- 
tality of  Adam,  if  secured,  Avas  to  be  by  special  sustain- 
ing power  in  pursuance  of  a  special  covenant  made  with 
him,  and  for  him  and  all  his  posterity.  If  he  obeyed,  he 
was  to  be  raised  out  of  nature,  and  secured  in  a  higher 
condition.  It  was  "  a  covenant  of  life  on  condition  of 
obedience."  To  say,  then,  that  death  could  not  have 
taken  place,  or  would  not  have  taken  place,  either  in  the 
animal  or  vegetable  kinds,  before  the  ftill,  or  without  the 
fall,  is  to  deny  the  very  grounds  on  which  was  covenanted 
to  Adam,  and  is  now  again  covenanted  through  Christ, 
eternal  life. 

Thus,  too,  if  we  carry  out  the  view  into  which  some 
would  run  in  their  fear  of  detracting  from  the  divine 
power  (should  a  self-hood  in  any  sense  be  ascribed  to 
nature)  God  must  not  only  be  in  the  same  nature  at 
every  moment  alike,  without  any  variation  in  presence  or 
degree,  but  he  must  be  equally  and  alike  in  all  natures, 
the  decaying  and  the  dying,  as  well  as  the  reviving. 
These  would  be  only  different  signs  of  one  and  the  same 
presence.  He  is  in  all  natures,  and  equally  in  all  na- 
tures,—  not  only  the  good,  but  the  bad;  although  we  are 


MOTION   BY  IMPULSE.  345 

a\Yare  that  there  are  some  who  deny  that  there  can  be 
any  such  thing  as  a  bad  nature.  They  do  not  believe  in 
the  cp^ovYiiia.  (fuPKos  regarded  as  "  the  fault  and  corrup- 
tion of  the  nature  of  every  man,  that  naturally  is  engen- 
dered of  the  offspring  of  Adam."  But  call  it  ^yhat  we 
may,  it  is  something  in  God's  universe  In  some  way  and 
in  some  sense  "  left  to  itself."  God  can  make  a  sjnrit 
to  go  by  itself, —  a  ivill  to  will  what  He  has  not  willed, 
or  which,  in  a  certain  sense,  and  a  true  sense,  can  even 
will  contrary  to  what  He  wills.  This  is  indeed  a  mys- 
tery ;  but  how  much  easier  than  this,  though  both  are 
incomprehensible,  to  make  a  nature  to  do,  of  itself,  just 
what  it  was  made  to  do  !  The  want  of  a  true  will  makes 
the  difference  between  a  j^ersonality,  strictly,  and  that 
lower  thing  we  have  called  a  self-hood,  or  self-subsistence  ; 
but  this  want  makes  no  difference  as  to  the  other  ques- 
tion, whether  nature  is  the  exercise  of  a  foreign  power  ever 
immediately  energising  from  without,  or  a  power  imparted, 
that  is,  parted  in  some  sense,  and  in  some  mode,  from 
the  orimnal  starting  source  ? 

Some  might  fancy  all  difficulties  obviated  by  conceiv- 
ing of  nature  as  a  chain  of  impulses,  each  one  operating 
"in  a  manner  outward  to  the  other, —  the  whole  series 
.  being  set  in  motion  by  the  Divine  hand,  and  kept  in  mo- 
tion by  a  continual  impact,  or  a  continual  transmission  of 
the  original  divine  power  through  every  successive  ictus. 
As  a  mere  conception,  this  need  not  be  objected  to,  al- 
though it  is  so  wholly  outward  and  mechanical.  It  may 
do  as  a  figure,  but  it  lacks  the  radical  idea  of  a  nature. 
It  has  no  real  inward  nexus.  As  a  compai-ison  —  the 
way  in  which  we  have  several  times  employed  it  —  it  may 
illustrate  the  scientific  ignorance  ;  but  nothing  is  gained 


346  AXIOM   OF   CONTINUOUS   MOTION. 

bj  it  towards  removing  the  real  mystery.  The  reason 
of  this  is,  that  motion  by  imjDulse, —  especially  the  continu- 
ance of  it  when  parted  in  time  and  space  from  what 
would  be  called  the  impelling  cause  or  force, —  is  just  as 
inexplicable  as  gravity,  or  magnetism,  or  any  other  un- 
known causality.  We  can  just  as  easily  conceive  of  any 
other  power  being  given  to  nature,  and  exercised  by  it, 
as  this  which  to  the  unthinking  seems  to  present  so  little 
difficulty.  Take  the  common  axiom  which  is  presented, 
and  then  so  naively  passed  over  by  some  of  our  scientific 
men  in  their  books  of  Natural  Philosophy,  as  though  it 
involved  no  mystery  — "  A  body  put  in  motion  will  con- 
tinue in  motion  indefinitely."  It  would  never  stop,  they 
sometimes  venture  to  affirm,  unless  outwardly  resisted. 
How  they,  in  their  brief  existence,  have  learned  this,  as 
matter  of  fact,  it  would  be  hard  to  tell ;  certainly  they 
do  not  pretend  to  hold  it  by  virtue  of  any  a  priori  ideas. 
That  would  be  very  unscientific.  But  the  reasons  they 
sometimes  give  for  this  assumed  fact  of  never  stopping 
has  some  strange  features.  Every  body,  it  is  said,  will 
continue  in  that  state  in  which  it  is,  if  there  is  no  cause 
or  power  producing  a  change.  In  a  state  of  rest,  there- 
fore, it  needs  a  moving  power,  in  a  state  of  motion,  a  re- 
sisting power,  to  make  a  change.  But  what  is  meant  by 
a  state  of  motion  ?  Motion  is  continual  change,  and  that 
is  the  only  idea  we  can  have  of  it ;  ^j-srafSaKksi  ya^  dsi  to 
(xsTot/SaXXov,  as  it  is  so  well  expressed  by  Aristotle,  PJit/- 
810.  Ausc.  Ill,  I,  4.  It  is  the  only  way  we  can  think 
the  phenomenon.  It  is  continuous  causality  with  con- 
tinuous effect,  the  active  and  passive  ever  combined, — 
ever  {j.-sru^aXKov,  and  ever  ^^;ra[3aXkoiJ.svov.  AVe  can  not 
conceive  why  it  should  not  require  the  same  power  to 


THE  PHYSICAL   SECRET  OF  THE  WORLD.  347 

carry  it  througli  one  space  as  through  another.  But 
wJiat  is  that  power,  and  ivJiere  is  it  ?  Is  it  the  divine 
hand  carrying  it  directly  through  every  point  of  space, 
the  same  as  though  that  divine  hand  took  it  up  at  one 
point,  carried  it  through  every  intermediate  point,  and 
had  ever  precisely  the  same  hold  of  it  as  in  the  first  start — 
•whether  that  start  was  made  by  a  new  fact  of  divine  en- 
ergizing, or  was  the  universal  divine  force  carried  all 
along  through  all  the  long  chain  of  motions  from  the  be- 
ginning of  nature  and  of  time  ?  That  would  involve  all 
the  consequences  before  pointed  out.  It  would  utterly 
confound  God  and  nature,  or  rather  wholly  absorb  nature 
into  God.  We  select  this  simple  and  common  example, 
because  it  contains  the  essence,  the  condensed  quintes- 
sence, we  may  say,  of  the  great  question.  Some  would 
see  no  difficulty  in  it,  and  might,  perhaps,  wonder  what 
there  could  be  in  so  simple  an  affair  to  cause  difficulty 
to  others.  What  can  be  more  clear  than  the  scientific 
fact,  and  the  scientific  statement,  of  impulsive  motion  ? 
And  yet  there  is,  indeed,  a  mystery  in  this  rolling  ball. 
It  carries  with  it,  in  fact,  the  great  physical  secret  of  the 
universe  —  the  separation  of  God  from  the  world.  It  is 
a  force  left  to  itself,  as  matter  is  left  to  itself.  Why  is  it 
not  as  much  an  entity  ?  Is  the  existence  of  matter,  or  its 
subsistence,  but  the  continuation  of  the  creative  force  ? 

If  it  be  thought  that  we  are  making  too  much  of  a  mar- 
vel of  this,  let  us  look  steadily  at  the  thing,  and  see  what 
we  really  know  about  it.  The  ball  is  at  rest  at  A,  then 
in  motion  at  M,  then  in  motion  at  IST.  Take  it  at  the  lat- 
ter point.  It  is  apparently  the  same  matter,  the  same 
internal  arrangement  of  particles,  with  the  same  chemi- 
cal affinities  existing  between  them.     Something,  cer- 


348  A  THING  CAN  ONLY  ACT  WHEN  AND  WHERE  IT  IS. 

tainlj,  has  been  added,  but  it  is  nothing  that  appears. 
Again ;  it  is  parted,  both  in  space  and  time,  from  the 
visible,  starting,  motive  cause,  and  that  can  exercise  no 
power  over  it,  and  produce  no  effect  in  it,  or  upon  it,  un- 
less it  can  be  supposed  that  a  thing  may  act  when  and 
where  it  is  not — a  supposition  that  would  violate  one  of 
those  higher  laws  of  our  thinking,  of  which  we  have 
already  spoken,  and  without  which,  in  fact,  we  can  not 
think  of  physical  causation  at  all.  And  yet  there  is  cer- 
tainly something  here  more  than  the  matter  in  its  state 
of  rest.  There  has  been  imparted  a  something,  yes,  an 
entity.,  which  is  truly  present  with  the  ball,  and  goes  along 
with  it, —  as  truly  present  as  the  particles  of  matter  of 
which  it  is  composed, —  being  in  every  proper  sense  of 
the  word  as  real  as  the  matter,  and  having  just  as  much 
of  a  real  self-hood,  or  self-subsistence.  There  is,  in  short, 
an  immaterial,  invisible  something  here  that  makes  the 
wondrous  difference  ;  and  this,  with  all  reverence  would 
we  say  it,  is  not  God.  Now  science  —  we  mean  a  cer- 
tain kind  of  science  that  is  inclined  to  talk  pompously 
—  says  she  knows  all  about  it ;  she  knows  just  what  this 
thing  is.  It  IS,  force,  she  declares,  neither  more  nor  less ; 
it  \^  force  that  carries  it  on  according  to  that  famous  lau' 
— "  a  body  once  set  in  motion,"  etc.  This  satisfies  the  man 
of  positive  science  eschewing  all  metaphysical  nonsense. 
Such  a  "  student  of  nature"  sees  no  mystery  in  the  thing 
whatever^  he  has  got  a  word,  and  that  contents  him. 
Now  the  contemned  word-hunters  would  tell  him  that 
the  conception  of  force  (9o|a)  runs  down  radically  into 
that  of  sustained  motion ;  it  is  a  carrying  along.  So 
that  his  word,  after  all,  is  only  the  scientific  expression 
of  the  outward  phenomenal  fact.     It  does  not  bring  him 


MYSTERY   OP   THE  ROLLING  BALL.  349 

a  particle  nearer  this  unseen  entity  of  which  we  are  in 
search.  ^  What  is  there  m,  on,  with  or  about  the  ball  at 
^  when  was  not  with  it  at  A,  or  was  quiescent  at  A  v 
^^^  force  IS  simply  a  mathematical  expression  for  an  ef- 
fect.    There  is  a  certain  time;  he  calls  it  ^;  a  certain 
space  has  been  passed  over  in  that  time  ;  he  calls  it  , 
He  puts  .  for  velocity,  m  for  mass,  etc.,  and  makes  a 
formula.     And  now  the  mystery  is  revealed.     To  be 
sure,  his  time  is  only  the  expression  of  a  visible  motion  • 
It  IS  a  comparison  of  an  earthly  with  a  celestial  motion,' 
one  of  which  is  no  more  absolute  than  the  other ;  but  he 
has  a  formula,  and  that  satisfies  him.     We  may  fairly 
ask,  however,  What  has  he  done  more  than  express  an 
outward  appearance?     Surely,  he  will  not  venture  to 
say  that  this  outward  appearance  is  the  whole  of  it 
Ihere  is  certainly  something  in  the  ball  at  N  which  was 
not  with  it  at  A.     It  is  something  that  goes  with  it,  and 
be  ongs  to  It,  until  it  (that  is  the  dynamical  entity  we 
call  the  force)  finally  stops  from  any  cause,- changes, 
je  should  rather  say,  for  it  only  seems  to  stop,  when!  in 
tact.  It  merely  disappears,  becomes  latent,  or  goes  off 
by  action  or  reaction,  into  something  else,  where  it  is' 
cither  carried  on  in  some  other  isolated  wave,  or  else 
empties  itself,  suddenly  or  gradually,  into  the  great  sea 
ol force,  with  its  mighty  currents  ever  swaying,  surc^in- 
eddying  throughout  the  universe.     It  has  disappeared,' 
not  perished ;  when  it  rises  again  it  is  a  new  birth,  not  a 
new  creation      Here  steps  in  philosophy;  but  what  can 
she  do?     She  wonders.     To  some  that  may  seem  but 
httle  ;  still  It  IS  a  great  step  in  advance  of  science  —at 
least  the  kind  of  science  we  have  been  speakin-  of 
Such  science  wonders,  too;  but  it  is  at  her  own  mar- 

30 


350  LAW-GIVER  —  LAW  —  SUBJECT. 

velous  achievements  in  having  invented  these  formulas  ; 
and  so  the  real  wonder  in  nature  goes  unheeded.  Phi- 
losophy wonders  at  the  mysterj.  All  philosophy,  says 
Plato,  begins  and  ends  in  wonder.  But  Faith  adores. 
Both  have  their  gaze  upon  a  higher  region  than  science, 
though  neither  Philosophy  nor  Faith  would  undertake 
to  solve  the  problem, —  to  tell  how  it  can  be,  or  why  it 
should  be.  But  Faith  beheves  that  "  by  the  Word  of 
the  Lord,"  as  something  more  than  a  sublime  figure, — 
by  the  veritable  going  forth  of  the  Eternal  Logos, — 
"  were  the  ages  made,  so  that  from  things  unseen  came 
forth  the  things  that  do  appear,"  and  that  these  unseen 
things  themselves  are  not  God,  but  true  entities  that  God 
has  created.  Thus  it  believes  in  God,  and  at  the  same 
time  in  a  real  nature,  a  real  world,  a  real  force  in  nature, 
and  a  real  law  in  distinction  from  any  mere  generaliza- 
tion of  outward  phenomenal  sequences  having  a  false  ap- 
pearance of  causation,  or  presenting  only  the  aspect  of 
signs  with  nothing  after  all  of  which  such  signs  are  really 
significant. 

And  thus,  too,  the  true  idea  of  law  becomes  complete, 
Vboth  in  its  divisions  and  its  rounded  outline.  To  this 
-three  things  are  necessary.  The  scientific  theist  charges 
upon  the  atheist,  or  sheer  naturahst,  that  he  has  the  ab- 
surdity of  a  law  without  a  laiv-giver.  It  may  be  retort- 
ed upon  the  former, — when  he  attempts  to  talk  piously, 
in  the  style  of  the  Andover  articles,  about  "  God  in  na- 
ture" immediately  energizing  in  every  efiect, — that  he 
has  the  equal  absurdity  of  a  law  without  a  subject.  We 
must  hold,  then,  one  of  these  three  views.     It  is  either — 

All  Grodf  which  is  pantheism  —  or. 

All  Nature,  which  is  atheism  —  or  it  is 


IDEAS   IN  NATURE.  ^'         351 

G-od,  Law^  and  Nature* — Late  giver,  Law,  Subject, 
— the  two  last  proceeding  from  the  first,  yet  each  by  it- 
self a  subsistent  reality, —  the  second,  or  middle  term 
being  that  by  Avhich  alone  we  can  truly  tJiink  the  others, 
without  severing  the  dependence,  or  confounding  the  dis- 
tinctions. We  say,  think  them  as  fact,  for  it  hath  not 
entered,  and  can  not  enter  into  any  human  mind,  yea,  we 
may  venture  to  say,  into  any  angelic  mind,  to  compre- 
hend or  even  think  the  deep  mystery  in  which  they  are 
essentially  united. 

There  is  another  topic  connected  with  this,  and  one, 
too,  of  no  light  interest.  There  is  a  force,  or,  rather, 
there  are  forces,  in  nature  in  some  way  left  to  themselves 
to  act  out  the  power  which  God  has  put  u'ithin.  But 
there  is  no  easy  stopping  place  here,  and  so  we  go  far- 
ther. If  we  would  avoid  that  annihilation  of  nature  and 
the  world  to  which  the  false  fear  of  naturaHsm  leads  us, 
then  we  must  hold  that  there  are  in  nature,  created  in 
nature,  given  to  nature,  remaining  in  nature,  belonging 
to  nature  as  part  of  her  self-hood  and  her  reality, — 
without  which  she  could  not  be  nature, —  not  onijforees, 
but  ideas  ;  and  if  forces  and  ideas,  then  laws,  which  are 
forces  acting  according  to  ideas.  The  laws  of  which  sci- 
ence sometimes  speaks,  are  a  very  different  tiling.  They 
are  but  dead  classifications,  such  as  might  be  conceived 
of  as  existing  in  a  universe  without  intelligence  ;  for  in 
any  supposed  state  of  the  world  there  might  be  classifi- 
cations of  things  in  space,  and  of  evejits  in  time, —  that 
is,  something  which,  when  discovered,  might  in  this  sense 

'  ^  These  as  they  stand  in  the  outward  or  created  world.  In  the  ante- 
creative  or  hyper-creative  state,  they  would  be  Go(f,  Truth,  P<ncer, — ever 
united,  yet  distinct. 


352  THE  OBSOLETE  DOCTRINE. 

be  called  an  order  and  a  law.  But  there  is,  moreover, 
an  intelligence ;  although  we  do  not  venture  to  define 
the  fact  or  mode  of  its  passivity  or  activity.  It  is  here 
that  modern  physical  speculation  ignores  that  old  doctrine 
of  the  Logos  in  Nature,  that  is  made  so  much  of  in  the 
Bible.  It  has  become  almost  obsolete,  very  much  as 
some  modern  theology  almost  ignores  the  mystery  of  the 
incarnation,  or  gives  it  little  place  in  the  redemptive  sys- 
tem, although  retaining  it  in  its  creeds  and  symbols. 

But  the  proper  treatment  of  such  a  subject,  with  its 
Scriptural  proofs,  demands  a  treatise  by  itself  There 
is  need  here  of  but  one  remark  in  relation  to  it.  Until 
this  doctrine,  now  hardly  recognised  even  in  theology,  is 
made  a  fundamental  and  all-pervading  axiom,  science 
must  be  atheistical.  Without  it,  it  can  never  be  truly 
religious  in  itself,  whatever  may  be"  its  pretensions,  or 
however  sincere  and  genuine  the  piety  of  many  most 
excellent  and  most  religious  scientific  men. 


